The Brief

According to California Community Colleges chancellor Sonya Christian, this is an urgent time for community colleges to respond to the climate crisis, coinciding with investments at the federal and state level.

Much of the strategy for that response revolves around one community college in particular: West Los Angeles College, in Culver City.

In 2022, the California legislature established the California Center for Climate Change Education at West, providing $5 million to promote climate change education and establish internships and other learning-on-the-job opportunities for its students, among other goals. The federal government kicked in another $1.3 million.

“This is the beginning of the involvement of community colleges,” Christian says about West’s new climate center and existing climate change studies program.

This June, under Christian’s leadership, West hosted the climate action summit for California Community Colleges to organize their climate response.

“President Biden has a very ambitious infrastructure agenda that the administration is investing in and so is the governor [of California],” Christian says. That agenda includes incentivizing private investments in clean energy production, such as wind and solar, and investing in infrastructure, such as electric vehicle charging.

“Community colleges to me are really the vehicles for these leaders to be able to realize their goals,” Christian says. “You’re going to be seeing immediately community colleges playing a much more active and cohesive role in the infrastructure rollout.”

The inaugural climate action summit for California community colleges covered the reduction of carbon emissions from campus facilities and operations, training and educating the workforce for climate careers, supporting local communities, and funding resources for climate work.

“There is a lot of momentum here. Now we’ll stop working in our separate silos and this is the start of collaboration,” says Vered Mirmovitch, an associate professor of the biological sciences at West.

Modeling climate change curriculum

West was already the first community college in California to offer an associate’s degree in climate change studies, beginning in 2018, with coursework on environmental science and statistics, but also philosophy, which challenges the assumptions behind how humans relate to the environment.

From left to right: JB Baum, graduate of WLAC's climate studies program, Marilyn Chavez, student, Vered Mirmovitch, associate professor of biological sciences, and Keon Hendrickson, graduate of WLAC's climate studies program.

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Jackie Orchard

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“It’s just given me an avenue to learn about something that I'm really interested in that I haven't had the opportunity to learn about on an educational level before,” says Keon Hendrickson, a recent graduate of the climate change studies program.

To Hendrickson, the most interesting course in the program was the philosophy class on environmental ethics. Rick Mayock, the instructor, asks why people assume “a certain amount of pollution is acceptable, a certain amount of species will die of extinction because of human ‘progress.’”

Through challenging these assumptions, Mayock says, “that's the way we began to change our thinking about our place in nature and our relationship with the planet and our relationship with ecosystems and other species and so forth."

Through its new climate center, West is developing more climate change curriculum for community colleges in California to adapt to their own campuses.

Eventually, the plan is for West to educate students of all disciplines on climate change, not just what people might expect of those studying environmental science.

For students studying math, they might learn statistics related to climate change; for students studying psychology, they might learn the concept of “climate change anxiety” — the feeling of powerlessness one might experience if overwhelmed by concerns about climate change.

Marilyn Chavez is a student at West learning about climate change while focusing on the health sciences. She took a biological sciences elective in the climate change studies program.

“What I've learned recently here is that despite what career path you take, environmental education is so important because it's something you can apply to every field,” Chavez says. “Sustainability is so important and we can all do our part no matter what field and what path we take in life.”

Originally from Guatemala, Chavez says her Indigenous background shapes how she relates to the environment. For her, she considers humans part of the environment, which is to be shared with other species, not a separate entity for humans to control.

Teaching in the climate change program at West, Mirmovitch sees the value of teaching climate change to students in all disciplines.

“(Climate change is the) major crisis of our time. It’s not something that we can ignore anymore and we need as many people to be on board and to be part of the solution,” Mirmovitch says.

Mirmovitch adds that for change to happen, it is most effective when there’s a critical mass of people involved.

Preparing the climate change workforce

A similar approach of incorporating climate change across disciplines is also taking place at the California State University system.

And other community colleges in California have not sat idle on climate-related education. For example, Long Beach City College has an underwater robotics program which can support monitoring ocean health. Colleges in the Central Valley are developing an Agricultural Technology program for farmers to adapt to climate change and water availability.

At West, president Jim Limbaugh wants to prepare students for high-paying careers in clean energy and climate technology, and not only related to solar energy.

WLAC President Jim Limbaugh outside the West Los Angeles Climate Center.

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Bonnie Ho

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Solar energy has already reached a level of maturity in the state, according to an analysis from the University of California Riverside projecting the future of green jobs in California. That report finds that there is room for other green sectors to grow, including the zero emission vehicles industry, which already has a strong presence in Southern California.

“There's all this interest in electric vehicle charging stations,” Limbaugh says. “There's not enough training out there, not enough people out there to actually install them and work on them.”

Through the center at West, Limbaugh says in October community colleges will meet with industry representatives to determine their training needs. In the Los Angeles region, employers and community colleges have already been identifying emerging climate-related sector needs, such as marine aquaculture for domestic fisheries production.

The center is also to partner with local and regional entities to support training to modernize the electric grid, Limbaugh says. He foresees that students can work in a range of climate-related fields, from conducting research or working as a sustainably-oriented park ranger in the Santa Monica Mountains.

Ethics and ambition

JB Baum just graduated from West’s climate studies program this spring and attended the climate action summit. Baum says the speakers at the summit could have been more ambitious, instead of focusing so much on preparing students to meet industry demands or partnering with certain industries.

“Not all private industry should be treated the same, nor all jobs universally good,” Baum says.

Baum suggests that community colleges be intentional about which companies to link students to, particularly not oil or utility companies that have contributed to the climate problem.

For example, Kern Community College is partnering with industries that employ direct air capture technology to manage carbon emissions, a technology that has been considered controversial in its effectiveness.

When asked about the scalability of air capture technology, Christian said that the approach by community colleges will be dependent on regional attributes and community colleges need to have a seat at the table at the start of technological revolutions before they become commercial.

Can community colleges move quickly enough? 

As recent wildfires in Canada severely reduce the air quality in the Midwest and Northeast; as extreme temperatures have blanketed California; and a heat dome covers regions in the South, it’s uncertain whether community colleges' efforts are moving quickly enough.

“I think some of these solutions (from the summit) aren't really tackling the immediate effects of climate change on students and talking about adjusting the academic schedule to account for the possibility of a heat dome every single September,” Baum says.

“What are we going to do when power doesn't exist on the campus anymore because of rolling blackouts?” he adds.

Santa Rosa Junior College, north of San Francisco, officially installed a microgrid system in 2022 to power priority buildings with solar energy and battery storage, and even support the existing utility grid. A microgrid, however, is a rarity among community colleges.

According to David Liebman, the manager of this project, other community colleges may not be as quick to adopt their own microgrid due to caution about the maturity of the technology, upfront costs, and available campus space.

On the community college level, actions being taken are deliberate, but results won’t be immediate. At West, the new climate center’s director, Jo Tavares, says they’re learning about their campus needs and what other community colleges are doing around climate change.

President Limbaugh expects that the first batch of courses with a climate change curriculum will be approved in the next year. He says 17 West faculty members are working on developing climate-change centered curriculum.

Chancellor Christian envisions “convening educators to come together is going to be something that we can count on on a recurring basis.”

Meanwhile, students from or in the climate program at West are making moves. Baum and Hendrickson are continuing their studies in Geography and Environmental Studies at UCLA. Students at West like Chavez are getting ready to take climate change classes in the fall.

Chavez plans to sign up for the environmental ethics class next. Speaking about her future plans, Chavez says she “would love to take more classes about environmental science” and “you know, just contribute as much as I can to the cause.”

As a parent, Chavez says she is teaching her children to help the environment, such as reducing the number of toys they purchase. “They'll see a toy, they'll want a toy, and we're like, you know, we have so many toys at home, we don't need to buy new toys,” Chavez says.

She hopes her children will learn to be self-reliant and sustainable, and that they pass these practices on.

“I feel like if I can teach them, they'll teach their children, if they plan to have children, or friends or just anybody that they come across.”

A hazardous materials team will begin working Monday to remove neutralized methyl methacrylate from two of three tanks at the GKN aerospace facility in Garden Grove.

Some 50,000 Orange County residents were evacuated for several days last month after one of the tanks overheated on May 21, causing fears of an explosion or a leak through the Memorial Day weekend.

The clean-up will be done in phases, until Thursday, “with multiple layers of safety protocols and oversight measures in place,” according to a press release from the Orange County Health Care Agency.

Containers that support temperature control and secure transportation will be used in the operation.

Cleanup was initially scheduled to begin June 4, but was postponed after officials said "needed resources" were unavailable.

Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer launched an investigation into the incident last month. The FBI and Environmental Protection Agency also seized evidence at the facility earlier this month.

Methyl methacrylate produces a fruit-like odor, Orange County Health Care Agency said residents may notice the scent during the operation. The agency said levels will remain below thresholds that could pose health risks.

Officials say environmental protection will be in place throughout the week. Air will be continuously monitored through both mobile and fixed equipment at the fence line of the facility and in the community. Air and odor monitoring based on wind conditions will also be done. Work will occur only during the daylight hours until Thursday.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is restricting access to rehabilitative programming for incarcerated people as it clamps down on overtime spending before the end of its financial year.

Hundreds of rehabilitative programs operate throughout California prisons, including restorative justice, violence prevention, higher education, creative arts expression and entrepreneurial training.

The rollback began earlier this month and will end June 30, according to documents obtained by CalMatters. Corrections spokesperson Terri Hardy described the limitations as a “cost-saving measure.” The department did not respond to a detailed list of questions, including which prisons and programs have been affected.

The department’s overall budget has remained about flat since 2022, around $18 billion a year despite recent cuts that include five prison closures.

Lawmakers at budget hearings earlier this year pressed Corrections Secretary Jeff Macomber to tighten spending as the department asked for additional $91 million in ongoing funding to cover unbudgeted personnel costs. The department last month also proposed an additional $100 million in workers compensation.

The California Correctional Peace Officers Association, the union that represents state prison guards, did not respond to CalMatters’ requests for an interview.

Tony Tafoya, who’s been incarcerated since 2012, said he’s never seen anything like this happen before. Tafoya said the scale-back has had the biggest impact on college classes. He’s currently enrolled in Mount Tamalpais College at San Quentin but said his math class has missed out on 12 days of instruction.

“I feel like I’m falling behind,” he said. “There’s a lot of healing that comes from going to school. It provides humanity. It makes me feel like I’m actually seen as a person. I feel like that’s what’s being missed out on.”

Programs at Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga have also been interrupted, including a civic education pilot program. The program, run by the organization Initiate Justice, includes just over a dozen incarcerated people who helped draft legislation to improve social emotional learning in the K-12 school system. Assembly Bill 1851, authored by Democratic Assemblymember Mike Gipson from Gardena, is sailing through the Legislature and scheduled for an upcoming education committee hearing Wednesday.

Antoinette Ratcliffe, executive director of Initiate Justice, said the group “thrives off of active and live discussion, off of meaningful exploration.” The severing of that connection disrupts the learning experience and practical application of the programming, she said.

“We have made it a goal across the Legislature to make rehabilitative programming a priority, so to continue to see disruptions like this feels counter to what we agreed upon as a state,” she said. “It feels like a let down.”

Other advocates have echoed those sentiments. Danica Rodarmel, a criminal justice reform lobbyist, said any disruption in people’s ability to access programming impacts their mental health and well being. The completion of a program or certificate, she said, is often a determining factor in people’s ability to be granted parole.

“Limiting people’s ability to engage in pro-social activities is contradictory to the goals of maintaining safe prisons both for the people who are incarcerated but also for the people who work there,” she said.

It's tick season, possibly the worst in a decade.

More and more Americans are being exposed to these parasites as climate change expands the range where they can survive. That means more people are also exposed to the bevy of health conditions they can cause, such as Rocky Mountain spotted fever, the alpha-gal-triggered red meat allergy and, most common of all, Lyme disease.

For Lyme disease, there may be some additional protection on the horizon. Pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and Valneva announced this spring that they plan to seek regulatory approval for a vaccine to protect against Lyme disease. A previous vaccine for Lyme became available in the late 1990s but was pulled only three years later due to lawsuits, public fear of side effects and a lack of interest.

It's unclear whether this latest stab at a Lyme disease vaccine will get a warmer reception if it's approved, especially in the post-COVID era of vaccine skepticism.

For a sense of how it might go over with rural populations at high risk of Lyme, KFF Health News spoke with a group of hunters.

Few people spend more time in the woods exposed to ticks. At the same time, as a collective, hunters  skew conservative, rural and male, according to a survey from the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. And these are identities associated with increased hesitancy about or resistance to vaccines, according to Ashley Kirzinger, associate director for Public Opinion and Survey Research at KFF, a health information nonprofit that includes KFF Health News.

Targets for ticks

Left untreated, Lyme can cause a variety of symptoms, from fevers, chills and headaches to arthritis, shooting pains and inflammation of the brain and spinal cord, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

About 476,000 people in the U.S. may be diagnosed and treated for Lyme disease each year, the CDC says. That's at least in part because the range of places where cases have been reported has "expanded significantly" since 1995.

So would hunters get the Lyme vaccine if it became available?

"Given my proclivity for the outdoors, absolutely," said Jess Manganelli, one of seven hunters (and one hiker) who spoke with KFF Health News on a recent Saturday at the Busch Shooting Range in Weldon Spring, Mo., just outside of St. Louis.

Of the eight, Manganelli, who had been hunting turkeys the weekend before, was the most positive about the vaccine. Six others said they would consider it but would want more information about its safety and effectiveness, as well as their risk for contracting the disease.

But Manganelli was the only one who believed she may have previously contracted Lyme disease, although she was never formally diagnosed with it. Two years ago, she experienced muscle weakness, tiredness, fatigue, swelling and headaches after a tick bite, but when she went to urgent care, she was told they didn't test for Lyme.

Nearly all the hunters knew someone who had had Lyme disease — an old roommate, a family member, friends, a former student. Lyme can be difficult to diagnose and to treat and is often misdiagnosed at first. Many of the hunters witnessed their acquaintances navigating those challenges and struggling with sometimes debilitating symptoms.

An illness with lingering effects

That familiarity among the hunters in Missouri was unsurprising to author and conservationist Steven Rinella, host of the hunting show MeatEater.

"I'm a turkey hunter. In talking about turkey hunting, you talk about ticks as much as you talk about turkeys," Rinella said. "Just the nature of turkey hunting puts you into exposure. You're sitting for long periods of time, trying to use vegetation for concealment."

In fact, both Rinella and his older son contracted Lyme disease 13 years ago during a bluegill fishing trip in the Hudson Valley in New York. His son developed Bell's palsy, a sudden paralysis on one side of the face, but recovered quickly after a course of oral antibiotics. Steven Rinella's symptoms, on the other hand, lingered for months, leaving him unable to walk down stairs without a handrail or to ride a bike. He ended up receiving intravenous antibiotic treatments for a month.

"I thought my life had changed," Rinella said, "but I recovered, as far as I know."

That experience is one reason Rinella said he would absolutely consider getting a Lyme vaccine if it proved safe and provided considerable protection against the disease. Unlike with some other diseases, prior infection does not provide permanent immunity, so a person who has had Lyme could still benefit from a vaccine.

Knowledge of similar challenges influenced the thinking of the hunters in Missouri as well.

Jeremy Hollingshead said he may be less inclined to take a vaccine owing to his former roommate's experience with Lyme disease, which is not to say the experience was pleasant. In fact, Hollingshead said he thinks his old pal is still dealing with lingering effects of it 10 years later. But Hollingshead has spent his whole life in the woods, and of hundreds of people he knows who have done the same, he knows of only one of them contracting Lyme.

"I know it was a bad outcome for him," Hollingshead said, but he thinks the odds of getting Lyme himself seem pretty slim.

Meanwhile, Julian Barnes said seeing a relative struggle with Lyme makes him more open to a potential vaccine. It took a long time for doctors to come to that diagnosis, and finding a good treatment has been equally difficult.

"I would say I am vaccine-hesitant, generally speaking," Barnes said. "But Lyme, I've seen the way it affects people in my life. ... I would definitely have to really understand the vaccine, how it works."

An unclear path for a new vaccine

The new, four-dose vaccine candidate technically missed one of the bars set out in trials because not enough participants contracted Lyme. Still, the companies say it's about 75% effective in reducing cases, and they plan to submit it to regulators for approval. A Pfizer spokesperson said there were no updates on their regulatory efforts when contacted by KFF Health News in June.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was a noted anti-vaccine activist before taking over as head the agency that oversees vaccine approvals, and he's remade it in ways that have prompted some vaccine makers to pull back on development.

But he's also been an advocate on Lyme disease. In May, he announced an initiative to combat Lyme disease. And during his Senate confirmation hearings, he said his family had been deeply affected by Lyme disease and that nobody would work harder than he would to find a vaccine or treatment.

If the vaccine is ultimately approved by the FDA, an endorsement from Kennedy would go a long way, according to KFF's Kirzinger, particularly among supporters of his Make America Healthy Again movement, who tend to be more vaccine-skeptical.

"They trust him as much as they trust their own doctors to tell them what to do with their health and for health information," Kirzinger said. "If he comes out as a strong proponent of this vaccine and says, 'Look what my administration did, and we made this available,' I would imagine there would be less vaccine resistance among that group."

Only one of the hunters who spoke with KFF Health News said they definitely would not be interested in a Lyme vaccine if it became available.

"I kind of hand it off to God and the body he gave me. I'm pretty durable," JP Cummings said. But even though he's not interested in it for himself, he's curious to see what his fellow hunters do as more information comes out.

"Hunters care about the wildlife; hunters care about health," Cummings said. "They love the wildlife, they love their deer, and they love their fellow hunters."

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF.

Far more people than previously known have dropped Affordable Care Act health insurance for 2026, according to data released Friday.

Five million fewer people are currently enrolled in ACA marketplace plans compared to the record high reached last year. More than 1 million fewer people picked a plan for 2026, and then 4 million more either disenrolled or failed to pay their premiums and, therefore, dropped coverage.

Prices in the market skyrocketed after President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress failed to extend extra financial help for enrollees last year. The Department of Health and Human Services published a report about the data on its website Friday.

The report says 19.2 million people are currently enrolled in ACA insurance now.

At its high, 24.2 million people were in the ACA marketplace in 2025, according to government figures.

The steep drop in enrollment reflects what insurers, administrators and other health policy experts expected earlier this year. After initial sign ups were lower than last year, they predicted the picture would get worse as time went on and people found they could not afford to pay their premiums.

"The main takeaway is that enrollment is down 13% from last year," explains Cynthia Cox, director of KFF's Program on the ACA. "While the Trump administration attributes this drop in enrollment to their attempts to address fraud, this coverage loss happened at the same time millions of people faced double- or even triple-digit increases in their premium payments with the expiration of enhanced tax credits."

The idea that the growth in enrollment was due to massive fraud is a theory advanced by the Paragon Health Institute, a conservative think tank influential in the Trump administration.

Many health policy experts are skeptical. They say the increase in enrollment during the pandemic is not suspicious. It was a predictable consequence of Congress's investment of billions of federal dollars in making premiums more affordable — the enhanced premium tax credits.

"The marketplace doubled in size during the period when there were enhanced subsidies because the coverage was much more affordable and much more appealing to people," Cox says.

This year's drop in enrollment is also predictable, given that premium costs doubled, on average, from 2025 to 2026. The costs went up after Republican lawmakers let the enhanced premium tax credits expire; Democrats shut down the government in October 2025 trying to negotiate an extension of the credits that would have kept prices low.

"When their costs went up, many of them dropped their coverage," Cox says.

She adds that while fraud is a real problem in the ACA marketplaces, as it is in all insurance markets, she thinks it does not account for all of the drop in enrollment.

Stacey Pogue, senior research fellow at the Georgetown Center on Health Insurance Reforms, agrees.

"I don't see data that point to that conclusion that a 5 million-person drop can be explained by allegations of fraud," she says. "There's lots of evidence pointing to people making decisions based on what they can pay each month."

The higher health insurance costs are tough for consumers in an economy still plagued by overall inflation. As congress let the prices go up, people made tough decisions about family budgets, where to work, whom to marry and more.

It's also a problem for insurance companies, several of which have announced they will not be participating in ACA markets next year, including Cigna.

"If there are fewer customers, then that makes the market less appealing to insurance companies," Cox says.

That's especially true because the people dropping their coverage tend to be healthier people. If too many healthy people drop out of the markets, there's a danger that the markets could enter a "death spiral."

Cox says she's not worried about a death spiral at this point.

"I think there are still enough people buying ACA marketplace coverage and that's going to keep these markets working," she says. "At this point, we don't see any parts of the country that are at risk of having no insurance company. If that were to happen, that would be what a death spiral might look like."

Even so, the premiums for these plans are on track to keep rising, which could continue to pummel consumers navigating high health care costs. Enrollment in the marketplaces may continue to shrink too. According to a recent analysis from Pogue at Georgetown, early insurance rate filings for 2027 show that rates will be going up again next year.