LA: Will City Hall Finally Get Serious about Accelerating Climate Change?
PLATKIN ON PLANNING-Finally, some potentially good news. The Los Angeles City Council has taken a long over due baby step to create a new City department, whose mission will be adaptation to and mitigation of climate change. Considering that our new normal is a mega-drought coupled with ironic warnings or catastrophic California floods, a 12-month wild fire season, worst case climate forecasts coming true, record breaking CO2 levels – already higher than at any point in humanity’s entire history, and repeated heat waves, this should hardly be news. Yet, unlike other major cities, such as Seattle, San Diego, and Chicago, Los Angeles is amazing lackadaisical about climate change. In fact, LA’s City Hall has even moved in the opposite direction, helping to exempt real estate speculators from CEQA reviews, while City Planning endlessly dawdles in preparing a Climate Change element for its creaky General Plan. At best, the city’s General Plan may eventually consider climate c