This campaign will take place over the course of 10 weeks from July 5th through September 9th. Over these 10 weeks CRCRC will be sharing resources and actionable strategies for building climate resilience throughout the Capital Region. Week 1 was focused on an introduction to the dangers of extreme heat and some basic strategies we can implement to mitigate its worst impacts.

The full program for the 13th Annual CCEC Forum is available now! View the lineup of speakers from sectors and industries across California and register today! This forum will take place September 21st and 22nd in San Diego, California. Find more information and register here.

Join the Strategic Growth Council for an informational webinar on its new Community Resilience Centers (CRC) program on Friday, July 15th, 2022. from 9:00 - 10:00 AM. register for this event here.

CRCRC operates an Extreme Heat working group and is currently in the process of relaunching its Building Decarbonization Working Group! The Building Decarbonization Working Group will launch in late August and will focus on the equitable dispersal of information and resources pertaining to building decarbonization and electrification throughout the Capital Region.

These sessions provide an opportunity to coordinate and collaborate with members of other organizations on upcoming projects and opportunities surrounding the identified priority topics.

If you are interested in joining a working group please complete this interest form.

If you or anyone at your organization has updates you would like to have promoted through this newsletter, utilize this form to submit them to be included in this newsletter! This can include any updates, upcoming projects, or opportunities for collaboration that you would like to share with the broader CRCRC network!

For the third weekend in a row, large swaths of the United States have wilted under early-season heatwaves that have set high temperature records from California to Texas. Nearly 100 million Americans are facing heat warnings and advisories from the southwest to the Mississippi River, with temperatures spiking well into the triple digits in California, Texas, Arizona, and Colorado. As much of the northern hemisphere heads into what is projected to be a hotter-than-usual summer, more people will be exposed to dangerous levels of high heat and humidity. Read this full article here.

Leading up to the event, forecasters warned of dangerously high temperatures in much of the interior of California as high pressure gripped the region and extreme heat led to the cancellation of a graduation ceremony at the University of California, Davis. UC Davis’ commencement ceremony was cut midway through after the campus received dozens of calls from people requesting medical aid. At least six people were transported to local hospitals, UC Davis spokeswoman Julia Ann Easley told the Sacramento Bee. Read this full article here.

In late 2017, Cape Town was on the brink of becoming the first major global city to run out of water, due to a combination of climate change, drought, and bad water management. To stave off “Day Zero”—the moment when reservoir levels would drop below a critical threshold and household water supplies would be turned off—residents were told to limit use to 13 gallons of water per person per day. (The average American uses 82.) That was enough for a 90-second shower, a half-gallon of drinking water, one load of hand-washed dishes or laundry, one cooked meal, two hand washings, two teeth brushings, and one toilet flush. Watering plants was out of the question. Read this full article here.

The outlook for California’s drought is grim. The first five months of the year have been the driest on record. Snowpack in the mountains, at its usual April 1 peak, was the smallest it’s been in seven years. Reservoirs are hovering near historic lows for the season, including Lake Shasta, the state’s largest. But there's one, albeit small, bright spot: spring runoff. Read this full article here.

About 100 people are safe but unable to leave a PG&E powerhouse after a wildfire sparked near the North Fork of the Mokelumne River on Monday afternoon. The group was swiftly evacuated to safe ground by sheriff’s officials. Thousands more in Amador and Calaveras counties are without power, according to PG&E. The company reported that it “de-energized” power lines in the area at Cal Fire’s request. Read this full article here.

More evacuation orders in Amador and Calaveras counties were recently lifted as crews continued to make progress in containing the Electra Fire. Find more information about evacuations on the Amador County Sheriff's evacuation map and the Calaveras County evacuation map. Here are details on the evacuation changes Friday. Firefighters said fire activity was minimal Thursday, with 891 structures still listed as threatened, down from more than 1,200 earlier this week. On Monday, around 100 people sheltering at Electra powerhouse were safely evacuated, according to Cal Fire, including people who had been visiting a nearby recreation area. More resources and information available here.

At a facility in Wheatland, about 40 miles north of Sacramento, trucks deliver over 200 tons of organic waste a day. Come July, this is where some of the food scraps tossed by residents of Sacramento County might end up and be given a second life — as compost. Read this full article here.

As drought intensifies, the order affects many cities and growers from Fresno to the Oregon border, including 212 public water systems. In sweeping water curtailments stretching from Fresno to the Oregon state line, cities and growers in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta watershed have been ordered to stop pumping from rivers and streams. Read this full article here.

Environmental justice and climate advocacy groups say the draft plan relies too heavily on carbon capture and could increase pollution in low-income neighborhoods. A public hearing last month turned into the latest flashpoint between California regulators and a coalition of environmental and social justice activists over how the state should achieve its ambitious climate agenda. Read this full article here.

Governor Gavin Newsom recently signed a $308 billion state budget that provides direct tax refunds for 23 million Californians to help address rising costs, tackles the state’s most pressing needs, builds our reserves, and invests in California’s future. More information here.

The Supreme Court’s recent ruling on West Virginia v. EPA is a blow to the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate carbon emissions. In the majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts explained that under this ruling, an agency like the EPA “must point to clear congressional authorization when it seeks to regulate ‘a significant portion of the American economy.’” The West Virginia case began as a backlash to the Obama administration’s 2015 Clean Power Plan. The plan was created to enforce cutting carbon emissions throughout the country. Read this full article here.

California’s global leadership on issues ranging from climate change to gun safety to economic resilience shared the world stage this week as leaders from across the Western Hemisphere gathered in Los Angeles for the ninth Summit of the Americas. Governor Gavin Newsom led a California delegation and represented the Golden State at several meetings and events with heads of state, foreign dignitaries and Biden Administration officials throughout the week. Find more information here.

G7 leaders have concluded a two-day summit where climate action and energy transition, global food security, and the war in Ukraine featured prominently. In a communiqué, the G7 leaders condemned “Russia’s illegal and unjustifiable war of aggression against Ukraine,” and pledge to “take immediate action to secure energy supply and reduce price surges driven by extraordinary market conditions.” Read this full article here.

A new UN-led financing tool to strengthen weather and climate forecasting, improve life-saving early warning systems, safeguard jobs, and underpin climate adaptation for long-term resilience, officially opened for business on Thursday, June 30th. Read this full article here.

The Capital Region Climate Readiness Collaborative is a membership based collaborative network designed to promote greater climate change resilience planning coordination in the six-county Sacramento Region. The purpose of this collaborative network is to create a forum where leaders from government, academia, environmental and community groups, the business community, and labor can come together to exchange information, identify vulnerabilities and data gaps, leverage resources, and advance comprehensive solutions in an effort to create stronger, sustainable, and economically viable communities in the Capital Region.

CRCRC is a program of CivicWell.