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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Getty Images North America

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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.”

Not only has Gov. Gavin Newsom vocally opposed the proposed California billionaire tax, but he also wants to prevent the state from ever passing a wealth tax in the future.

On Friday he endorsed Proposition 42, a ballot measure that would cancel out Proposition 40, the proposed billionaire tax. Prop. 42 would prohibit retroactive taxes like the one-time 5% tax on assets that would apply to any billionaire who lived in California on Jan. 1, 2026, if Prop. 40 passes.

But Prop. 42, funded and placed on the ballot by billionaire and Google co-founder Sergey Brin to defeat the billionaire tax, also would go further, by banning any new taxes on personal property.

That includes pensions and 401K accounts before retirees start drawing retirement income from them. It also includes other investments, financial assets, business holdings, art collections and all other forms of personal wealth that would be affected by the billionaire tax or any future wealth tax.

Newsom’s decision to support Prop. 42 runs counter to his own Democratic Party and some labor unions. It also aligns him with some of the wealthy tech donors with whom he’s maintained longstanding relationships dating back to his days as mayor of San Francisco.

Proponents primarily argue that middle-class workers’ retirements and pension accounts should never be taxed as assets before the gains are later taxed a second time as income, even though there is no such proposal. Lawmakers have in the past proposed asset taxes but those bills went nowhere in the Legislature and any tax would require a two-thirds majority to pass. The proposed billionaire tax also exempts many kinds of retirement accounts.

“We all agree that Californians deserve to have their retirement and life savings protected from new state taxes so those savings are there when they need them,” Newsom said in a statement released by the proponents, who also include police and fire unions.

Proponents of the tax criticized his Prop. 42 endorsement as “in lock step with his billionaire backers.”

“By voting yes on Prop 42, he’s showing California his true colors,” said Debru Carthan, vice president of Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West in a statement. “He’d rather millions of children and families lose their healthcare than ask a couple hundred billionaires to finally pay their fair share.”

Newsom has not yet taken a position on Prop. 41, another Brin-backed, anti-billionaire measure that would nullify Prop. 40 by subjecting the tax revenues to certain state spending limits and audits, said spokesperson Izzy Gardon. The billionaire tax measure, funded by one healthcare union, would put 90% of the money it collects toward the state’s healthcare program for low-income residents, Medi-Cal.

Newsom, along with many other leading California Democrats and most Republicans, has vocally opposed the billionaire tax and tried to negotiate to keep it off the ballot. In general during his two terms as governor he has opposed state-level taxes on assets, out of concern the wealthy will leave the state and deprive the state of their income tax revenue.

But he has also sought to take advantage this year of a populist upswing and frustration toward tech billionaires ahead of his decision on whether to run for president after he leaves office. The California Democratic Party endorsed the billionaire tax and polling shows a slim majority of likely voters support it.

In response to the billionaire tax, Newsom this summer announced a proposal to impose a national tax on the wealthy, including a minimum tax rate on anyone with a net worth of more than $100 million. He also wants to undo corporate tax cuts that President Donald Trump and Congress approved in 2017, boost inheritance taxes and close loopholes the wealthy use to borrow from unrealized capital gains without paying income taxes.

Critics from the left have tried to use his Prop. 40 opposition against him. Last weekend as he rallied for the billionaire tax, Democratic California Rep. Ro Khanna, another possible 2028 presidential contender, said donor relations were the “only reason” for Newsom’s opposition.

“You can’t be anti-Trump and then do the bidding of Trump donors,” Khanna said in a video with progressive former congressional candidate Saikat Chakrabarti.

Khanna pointed to Brin, who has never donated to Newsom but has had a relationship with the governor for years. Newsom and Brin attended each other’s weddings. The tech magnate has recently also turned rightward, courting Trump’s favor.

Newsom announced his endorsement of Prop. 42 on Friday along with his positions on most of the 14 ballot measures Californians are deciding on.

He endorsed most measures on the ballot, but opposes Proposition 39, the Republican-backed voter ID measure; Proposition 43, a measure to make it more difficult to pass most local taxes; and Proposition 44, a health union-backed measure to dictate how much money clinics serving low-income patients must spend on patient care.

He hasn’t yet taken a position on Proposition 45, the business-backed measure that puts time limits on the environmental review process for new developments.

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

Long Beach is famously surrounded by a breakwater to protect its harbor, but that massive barrier hasn’t been able to shield homes on the city’s Peninsula from hurricane-charged swells recently.

Over the last few weeks, strong waves have repeatedly stripped away sand, broken through a boardwalk bulkhead and threatened to collapse beachside homes by clawing away the sand underneath them. All of this keeps happening in a narrow stretch of homes along the Peninsula, mostly between 62nd and 69th places.

Those few blocks are vulnerable to swells coming from the south because of an opening in the breakwater and jetty that allows boat access to Alamitos Bay.

In order to protect those homes, Long Beach typically builds a sand berm to block waves. When waves rip it away, the breakwater keeps it from washing out to sea, and it instead piles up to the west near downtown (a phenomenon called littoral drift.) The city spends $1 million to $1.5 million a year on trucking that sand back to the Peninsula and rebuilding the beach.

This year, it hasn’t been enough.

El Niño’s warm waters have supercharged high tides. That, combined with hurricane-driven waves coming up from the south, has stripped so much sand away from the Peninsula’s beach that the wooden bulkhead under the coastal boardwalk has been exposed.

At high tide, breakers now slap directly against the wood, repeatedly splintering it.

The city is hoping to soon start a $11.4 million dredging project to gather enough sand to rebuild the beach and protect the boardwalk, but that can’t happen while it’s getting pounded by the surf.

There may be some relief soon. Hurricane season in the eastern Pacific runs from mid-May through November. Hurricanes later in the year are much more likely to form in the western Pacific — as opposed to the southeast — and the federal breakwater that shields Long Beach’s harbor blunts the swells that originate from the west. That’s why much of California’s western coast may still see dangerous waves through the winter, though Long Beach is usually safe.

To bolster the Peninsula’s defenses, Long Beach is now considering a $6.8 million plan to build a rock revetment — a wall of boulders that would sit behind the beach as a backup.

This aerial view of the Peninsula was included in a city report on ways to replenish its sand.

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City of Long Beach

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via Long Beach Post

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But for a long-term solution, officials say it may cost $150 million to $350 million for a full habitat and shoreline restoration — funded partly by state mitigation credits.

It’s the kind of project that would take massive amounts of approvals and planning and likely some delays. The city council, for now, has approved $30,000 to look into it further.

There's a new film club in town. Think burlesque, with a dose of Mystery Science Theater 3000, and the vibe of a Rocky Horror Picture Show midnight screening — and you’ve got Sh—ty Movie Club.

Kinda.

Founder Shadie Elnashai calls his epic hangs “movie parties.” They began as get-togethers among friends in 2019, where drinking games or movie bingo are part of the experience. Since then, screenings have been held in Cairo, Tokyo and Sydney. In Los Angeles, ticketed events started in late August at venues like Clifton’s — all in celebration of films with a certain flavor.

Gems like The Apple, the over-the-top sci-fi biblical musical from 1980 where an evil music label controls the world — in the futuristic year 1994.

Or Ninja Terminator, a Hong Kong martial arts flick that its director stitched together using original footage and those from another existing film. No one at his screening, Elnashai said, was any the wiser, until he stopped the movie midway and told them.

"We actually don't use the word 'bad'. Sh—ty movie to me is awesome. It's entertaining, it's earnest, it's genuine," said Elnashai, who studied film in college. "Some people still hate it, don't get me wrong.  "

Audience members showing off their "Niu Lai"-inspired outfits.

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What a Sh—ty Movie Club screening is like

I got a taste of that joy and reverence, along with some 200 people at Clifton’s in downtown L.A., at a recent screening of the viral Chinese animated film Liu Nai.

The coming-of-age tale of a baby cow was made by a mother and son with zero film or animation experience — and it looked it. Those very bush-league qualities helped it go viral. The film went on to gross $9 million at the Chinese box office against a budget of under $200.

A hand-drawn poster advertising the film "Niu Lai", which translates to "Here Comes the Cow", is seen at a cinema in Beijing on August 21, 2026.

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Before the movie: Posters, jokes and a cow striptease 

I had read about the movie, but was never curious enough to try and see it, until I saw a social post for the screening.

At Sh—ty Movie Club, the film is the main course, with a full menu built around it. First comes a preshow that features a show-and-tell of homemade film posters by audience members (a nod to what happened in China), a call-out for bovine jokes, and, between gags, cow-related video clips (including a McDonald’s infomercial from Hong Kong) Elnashai compiled runs in the background. The indisputable climax belongs to the long, slow striptease by a woman dressed in a full cow costume.

“Each screening's a little different,” said Elnashai, whose day job is curating entertainment for private and corporate events, adding that he typically readies a few dozens assets — clips, jokes, gags — for each club screening. “There’s so much prep that goes into it.” 

Founder Shadie Elnashai designed a drinking game specifically for the screening of the viral Chinese cow movie "Niu Lai."

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Talking back to the screen is encouraged 

The Chinese viral cow movie itself is screened from a bootleg probably taped inside a movie theater (the film isn't in U.S. theaters or on streamers) — with jagged angles and a Chinese QR code that ricochets across to boot. Somehow, it all feels very on point.

Audiences are encouraged to talk at the movie, to chant “rewind” for an instant replay, and to abandon themselves to the film — odd but uniquely singular in its aesthetics — in the good-natured company of so many others.

“There's no rule book,” Elnashai said of many of the films screened at the club. “Each one is completely, beautifully different. Experiencing that all together is so fun for me to watch.”

Vicki Rodriguez and her family gathered at Central Library in downtown Los Angeles in September — blocks from where they lived more than half a century ago — to see their lives on Bunker Hill portrayed by a famous painter they called “Mr. Politi.”

In the 1960s, Caldecott-winning artist Leo Politi painted the historic Bunker Hill neighborhood. Thousands of people were forced by eminent domain to relocate for the modernization plan known as the Bunker Hill Redevelopment Project. Politi, who had once lived there himself, took it upon himself to sketch, then paint, some of the houses that were soon to be demolished.

“I saw these beautiful mansions being torn down,” Politi told an interviewer at KCET in 1987, “and I says, ‘I just got to start drawing them and recording them,’ so I did a lot of studies up there, and when I finished, I did the book.”

"The Veranda" by Leo Politi in "Bunker Hill, Los Angeles: Reminiscences of Bygone Days". The drawing features Ruby and Julie.

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A scan from the book.

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In 1964, he published a selection of what he captured in a book, Bunker Hill Los Angeles: Reminiscences of Bygone Days. The beloved childhood home of Vicki and her family was featured in those paintings.

Watching Mr. Politi at work

Vicki, her sister Ruby Besing, and their cousin Julie Lendt remember playing outside the house they all lived in at 221 S. Bunker Hill Avenue and watching Politi sketch.

They didn’t know then that the friendly man with an easel and paints was a lauded artist. When they saw the finished product, they were thrilled to find that Politi called them “the last children on Bunker Hill.”

Photo taken in 1960 of 221 S. Bunker Hill Ave., where the Bruce family lived.

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How Politi's art ended up at the library

In 1965, after displaying some of Politi’s paintings from the book, Central Library acquired 44 of his sketches and drawings for $3,000. Though collecting art isn’t typically part of the library’s mandate, librarians deemed the pictures of the now-leveled neighborhood to be of important historical value.

Vicki and her family — who relocated to Echo Park after being forced to move — learned a few years ago that several of the artworks had been put on display in the library’s children’s section.

But the picture of their family home at 221 S. Bunker Hill Avenue wasn’t one of them. It was housed in the library’s Special Collections.

The Bruce family has had a copy of Leo Politi's book on Bunker Hill for decades.

A copy of Politi’s book signed to Vicki and Ruby’s family is a prized possession.

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How the Bruce family came to Bunker Hill

Though Politi refers to the house in the book as belonging to their grandmother, it actually belonged to Vicki’s parents, Byron and Vaden Bruce, who’d grown up poor in Kentucky and moved west in the mid-1940s to Los Angeles in search of a better life.

Byron’s aunt, a preacher named Stasia Mobley who ran a mission on Skid Row, married the couple in May 1946. They celebrated their wedding with a dinner at Clifton’s Cafeteria, a special treat that they indulged in on their anniversary each year after.

Vaden and Byron Bruce on their wedding day at Clifton’s Cafeteria in May 1946.

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Byron Bruce was a musician whose sight was limited. Since he couldn’t drive, Bunker Hill was the perfect launch point from which he could walk to the many bars and clubs that dotted the downtown landscape. He was also a smart businessperson who cobbled together the money to buy a few homes around the neighborhood, sliced into apartments, which he maintained for his tenants. Vaden worked for over 30 years in the administrative office at the Sears in Boyle Heights.

Vicki, Ruby and Julie all walked down the hill each day and through the 2nd Street tunnel to Fremont Elementary School.

Leaving Bunker Hill

As they played in the streets while Politi worked to capture them, they had no idea about the yearslong battle to level their neighborhood. The Bruces never troubled their children with the unfolding drama over its purchase by eminent domain. (Those who didn’t own their home — the majority of the people evicted from Bunker Hill — were forced out without any assistance.)

When they finally had to leave in the summer of 1963, their childhood on the hill became a cherished memory.

Vicki Rodriguez, Ruby Besing and Julie Lendt pose with a sketch they’d never seen from the Leo Politi Collection at Central Library

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For 30 years now, Vicki, who lives with her husband in Tujunga, has been a longtime secretary of my neighbor on the modern Bunker Hill — directly across the street from where the Bruce family once lived.

When he told me about Vicki’s roots in the neighborhood, I helped her connect with the library.

What the family found in the library's collection

Ruby Besing, librarian Ani Boyadjian, Julie Lendt and Vicki Rodriguez.

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Lisa Napoli

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In September, Vicki, Betsy, Julie, and Vicki’s son, Jeffrey, huddled around boxes of art as librarian Ani Boyadjian carefully opened the first. The very first piece she pulled out was one depicting their Bunker Hill Avenue home. But it wasn’t the picture Politi used in the book — it was another one that the family hadn’t known about.

Looking at paintings and sketches they didn’t know existed, these last children on Bunker Hill, now in their 60s and 70s, found themselves transported back in time to their beloved neighborhood — and flabbergasted to see how much attention Politi had paid them, even Ruby’s beloved childhood pet cat, Poncho.

“To our knowledge, there were only the two paintings in the book. And then at the library, we see there are something like 15 sketches and paintings, renderings of the house we’d never seen before,” Vicki said after the visit. “It blew me away. Seeing this artwork was a dream come true.”