Land Use & Open Space Conservation

The Breakthrough Institute is proud to announce Steven Pinker, Ariane de Bremond, Sarah Evanega, and Julio Friedmann as our 2018 Senior Fellows. This is the tenth year that Breakthrough has conferred Senior Fellowships to leading scholars who have shaped our research and vision. This class of Senior Fellows will join the ranks of the 45 prominent experts who have joined our network of global thought leaders committed to building a future that is good for both humans and nature. We are grateful to be able to count upon their expertise, counsel, and inspiration.

Editor's note: The following story first appeared in The Press Democrat. Switzer Fellow Lisa Micheli is President and CEO of the Pepperwood Foundation, which operates the Pepperwood Preserve. Green stalks of redwood lilies grow beneath the giant trees at Pepperwood Preserve, but no one has seen the colorful, trumpet-shaped blossoms in decades.

An effort to improve access to parks in Harris County Precinct 1 will begin by asking residents what kind of green spaces they want and need. "This project is going to yield many benefits for our residents, particularly our most vulnerable and under-served populations," said Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis said during the Monday kickoff of the Park-Smart Precinct One project, an effort to eliminate some of the park deserts in that portion of Harris County. ...

Margaret Torn, a senior scientist in Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab)’s Earth & Environmental Sciences Area (EESA), has been named by the American Geophysical Union (AGU) as a 2017 AGU Fellow. Every year, the AGU Fellows program recognizes members who have made exceptional contributions to the Earth and space sciences. Vetted by a committee of AGU Fellows, honorees represent no more than 0.1 percent of AGU’s 60,000 members.

“There will be more butts on bikes — and that’s a good thing.” That’s probably the most memorable line from the speaker’s podium during last week’s Ford GoBike launch in downtown Oakland, marking the first-ever arrival of bike sharing in the East Bay. But some supporters of the system say they’re thinking not just about how many butts, but whose butts, will be on the 1,500 or so shared bicycles expected to be rolling in Oakland, Berkeley and Emeryville by Labor Day.

Here are 20 ideas that could fix L.A. ... 12. Exhume our creeks.