Galaxy starts July with ‘two big derby games’ in four days

• June 30, 2023

It is rivalry week for the Galaxy.

The Galaxy kicks off July against their Northern California and traditional rival San Jose on Saturday at Stanford Stadium (7:30 p.m., Apple TV+). Just three days later, it takes on city rival LAFC on Fourth of July at the Rose Bowl in front a crowd that is likely to break the MLS attendace record of 74,479.

“They’re two big derby games,” Galaxy goalkeeper Jonathan Bond said. “It’ll be something we will all look forward to. It’s definitely one the fans are looking forward to and we’re hoping to do it for them.”

The Galaxy heads into San Jose on a four-game unbeaten streak, though it is only one win and three consecutive draws. In order to make up ground in the Western Conference, the draws are going to have to turn into wins at some point.

“Through stretches of these last four games, I’ve liked what the group has been able to do,” Galaxy coach Greg Vanney said. “I feel we’re positive about some of the things we’ve settled in. The gap for us, I think we’re No. 1 or 2 league in chance creation, but we are so far behind it in the actual execution of those chances. We’ve got to close that gap and that will take a little stress off of the defensive side because there is a sense that you really have to be perfect at times on the defensive side, which we haven’t, but I think we’ve improved and will continue to improve.

“The mentality has been strong, we’ve gotten out of front games, we’ve come from behind in games, the one we really rue was the one here (June 21 against Sporting Kansas City). We’re up 2-1 and it’s late in the game and not taking those (three points). If you take those points, we would be over the moon with this stretch of four games because three of the four have been on the road and in tough places to play.

“We’re showing some resiliency and some progress, but we’ve got to close that gap of finishing the chances that we’re creating for ourselves, which then takes a little bit of stress maybe off of the defensive side. And when you’re protecting a lead, you get everybody really focused on that protection and not feeling like we have to overpush to get those goals that haven’t been easy for us to get.”

The Galaxy have four games to start the month before the Leagues Cup break. After San Jose and LAFC, it will host the Philadelphia Union on July 8 and hit the road for a July 15 clash with the Vancouver Whitecaps.

“We feel good about going into San Jose, I think we played one of our best games against them here (May 14, 2-1 win), so we’ve got to learn from that. I’m sure they’ll adapt to some things, but it was one of our days where we did a lot of things well on the day for 90 minutes and deserved the win,” Vanney said. “Then when you go to the Rose Bowl, and it’s 80,000-plus people and you’re playing your cross-city rivals, anything can happen. It’s going to be hell on wheels … Right now we’re in a section (of our season) where it’s one game at a time. Get everybody ready to get a result on that day.”

“Thing about July is, there are four games (in league), we’ve got to really do our best to manage these four games and get as much as we can out of these four games.”

Sega Coulilbaly waived

The club announced Friday that it had waived the French defender after two-plus seasons. Coulilbaly had been slowed by a knee injury this season.

“We’re going to leave it at undisclosed medical reasons,” Vanney said as a reason. “He will return back to France to try to get himself ready to go again. We’ve been working close with him and we just think, for all of us, this is the scenario.”

GALAXY AT SAN JOSE

When: Saturday, 7:30 p.m.

Where: Stanford Stadium

How to watch: Apple TV+ (MLS Season Pass)

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​ Orange County Register 

After 25 years, San Juan Capistrano’s Cedar Creek Inn closes. Its replacement just opened.

• June 30, 2023

Well, it’s official.

After 25 years in business in downtown San Juan Capistrano, Cedar Creek Inn changed its name Friday, June 30 to Tavern at the Mission. In addition to the new name and signage, owners David Wilhelm and Gregg Solomon have revamped the menu, with plans for an extensive renovation set to take place next year.

“It’s an iconic location that’s only going to get better,” said Wilhelm, who purchased Cedar Creek Inn in May. After taking ownership, the chef/restaurateur added new items to the menu, including some of his signature dishes, like his buttermilk fried chicken with thyme gravy and his Comté cheese-topped French onion soup that uses beef and veal stocks. While “90 percent” of Cedar Creek Inn’s menu will change under his tutelage — “we will feature some of my greatest hits, which are classic comfort foods with my own twist,” he said —  Wilhelm smartly kept intact such Cedar Creek Inn staples as the Monte Cristo sandwich and coconut cake.

The new Tavern at the Mission, the second iteration of Wilhelm’s Tavern brand, will remain open throughout the year until a major indoor and outdoor renovation happens at a tentative date in early 2024 during the slow months of the winter season. Wilhelm and Solomon plan on transforming the space with a new vibe that will blur the lines between the interior and exterior seating areas. “I would describe the upcoming décor as a contemporary Santa Barbara Mission,” he said. Guests can look forward to open and airy interiors with cream colored walls and new flooring, decorative lighting, seating arrangements. “It’s going to be understated but very sophisticated,” Wilhelm added.

The restaurant’s bar theme will lean into the city’s cowboy history with the addition of dark leather buckskin booths and bar seats.

More importantly, the entire restaurant, which measures a whopping 5,000 square feet, will open up to provide a more cohesive flow. “Right now there are three different physical components: there’s the bar, the patio, and the other side is the dining room,” he explained. “We’re going to open up the bar and we’re going to open up all the doors in the dining room so that you could be sitting at the bar and you’ll be able to literally look all the way across the patio and into the dining room.”

The roughly 3,000-square-foot patio will also undergo a facelift, including new seating, up-lighting for the ash trees and landscaping.

“We’re going to clean everything up and make it very simple, very contemporary,” Wilhelm said.

This is Wilhelm’s latest restaurant in his impressive portfolio, which includes Jimmy’s Famous American Tavern in Dana Point and Tavern House Kitchen and Bar in Newport Beach, as well as a stable of other notable restaurants, past and present, like Kachina, Chimayo Grill, Chat Noir, and Savannah Chop House. It’s also a more personal restaurant because it’s located in the city that he also calls home.

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Tavern at the Mission is the latest concept to come to San Juan Capistrano’s downtown area, south county’s budding culinary epicenter. Since 2020, the historic center has seen an uptick in chef-driven eateries, most most notable Heritage Barbecue (which ranked No. 1 in The Register’s 75 best places to eat list), Breezy, artisanal bakery FKN Bread, Mission-adjacent Bloom Restaurant and Bar, and JD Flannel Donuts. These new eateries join a slew of long-standing taquerias, like El Campeon Carniceria and Las Golondrinas, and other established restaurants. Adding to the city’s growing food pedigree is the Ecology Center, a sustainable and organic 28-acre farm that sells homegrown produce and features recurring family-style dining events that teach diners about sustainable, local farming.

Find it: Tavern at the Mission, 26860 Old Mission Road (at El Camino Real), San Juan Capistrano; open for lunch and dinner

​ Orange County Register 

Corky: Showing love for those love to surf with

• June 30, 2023

One of my very favorite events to cover each year is the Surfer’s Hall of Fame inductions.

This year’s ceremony is set for 9 a.m. on Aug. 4.  The site is the Surfer’s Hall of Fame Plaza on the corner of Pacific Coast Highway and Main Street in Huntington Beach, directly across the street from Duke’s Restaurant and the infamous Huntington Beach Pier.  It is part of the big week of the U.S. Open of Surfing, held at the pier from July 29 to Aug. 6.

This is the 26th year for the SHOF, the brainchild of lifetime Huntington Beach local surfer, and owner of Huntington Surf & Sport, Aaron Pai.

Aaron and his family are Orange County surfing royalty and together they put on this event each year to try and give back some of their love and dedication to the sport and lifestyle that is surfing and the surfing community as a whole.  I can’t remember how many Pais there are now in that family, but they all surf and are all really cool and they all work together to make the SHOF one of the most prestigious events in Surfing.

The ceremony is patterned after the famous Grauman’s Chinese Theatre collection of cement tiles with hand and footprints of movie stars. In this case, each surfer who is inducted into the Hall of Fame has a square of concrete which they put their hand and footprints, sign and write a short something.  These concrete squares are laid in the ground in the Surfer’s Hall of Fame Plaza and are looked over by the big statue of Duke Kahanamoku that marks the spot.

Some of the previous inductees into the Surfer’s Hall of Fame include Kelly Slater, Tom Curren, Phil Edwards, Mike Doyle, Shaun Tomson, Mark Richards, Gerry Lopez, George Downing, Paul Strauch, Joyce Hoffman, Lisa Anderson, Margo Oberg, Bob Hurley, Bruce Brown, Robert August, Bud Lamas, Mickey Munoz, Jericho Poplar, Wingnut Weaver, Rob Machado and this list goes on and on and even includes my favorite cool dude and old surfing fat guy, me.  I try to not include myself in this list each year, but my ego wins out and the fact that I am very proud of actually being inducted that I just can’t help myself.  It’s my party and I’ll brag if I want to.  (Insert me with tongue sticking out going “hahaha.”)

This year’s inductees are Italo Ferreira, the dynamic Brazilian world champion, Pipeline Masters winner and surfing’s first Olympic gold medalist.  Also, Fernando Aguerre, a Southern California transplant originally from Argentina.  Fernando started the super successful Reef Brazil company and is today the president of the International Surfing Association.  It was largely due to his relentless work and dedication to getting surfing recognized as an Olympic sport that at long – believe me very long – last it is now part of the summer games.

Rounding out this year’s inductees is our very own, and I not only mean Orange County’s very own, but The Orange County Register’s very own, Laylan Connelly.  I am so over the top happy, this is a great moment for all of us to share in.  Laylan has worked heart-and-soul for more than 20 years bringing the very heartbeat of the surfing community to the world at large in ways that engage both the hard-core surfers as well as being informative to those who never have, and never will, set foot on a surfboard.

She is simply the best at doing what she does, reporting surfing to the world.  I am super proud of her and it has been a true honor to be her fellow surfing columnist through all these years – and many more I hope to come.

Not only does Laylan write about it, but she is a full-on surfer herself who describes her best days as “hanging out down at San Onofre with husband Jon Perino and children Kai and Liliani, soaking in the sun and surf and looking for the next story on the horizon.”

A huge congrats to Laylan and her family.  I will tell you more about the event and both Italo and Fernando in my next offering.  Stay tuned.

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​ Orange County Register 

The Supreme Court rules for a designer who doesn’t want to make wedding websites for gay couples

• June 30, 2023

By JESSICA GRESKO

WASHINGTON — In a defeat for gay rights, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority ruled on Friday that a Christian graphic artist who wants to design wedding websites can refuse to work with same-sex couples. One of the court’s liberal justices wrote in a dissent that the decision’s effect is to “mark gays and lesbians for second-class status” and that the decision opens the door to other discrimination.

The court ruled 6-3 for designer Lorie Smith, saying that she can refuse to design websites for same-sex weddings despite a Colorado law that bars discrimination based on sexual orientation, race, gender and other characteristics. The court said forcing her to create the websites would violate her free speech rights under the Constitution’s First Amendment.

The decision suggests that artists, photographers, videographers and writers are among those who can refuse to offer what the court called expressive services if doing so would run contrary to their beliefs. But that’s different from other businesses not engaged in speech and therefore not covered by the First Amendment, such as restaurants and hotels.

Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the court’s six conservative justices that the First Amendment “envisions the United States as a rich and complex place where all persons are free to think and speak as they wish, not as the government demands.” Gorsuch said that the court has long held that “the opportunity to think for ourselves and to express those thoughts freely is among our most cherished liberties and part of what keeps our Republic strong.”

See more on key Supreme Court decisions: Southern California educators, leaders split on court’s affirmative action ruling | Court solidifies protections for workers who ask for religious accommodations | Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions, says race cannot be a factor | Court rejects GOP argument in North Carolina case that could have transformed US elections

The decision is a win for religious rights and one in a series of cases in recent years in which the justices have sided with religious plaintiffs. Last year, for example, the court ruled along ideological lines for a football coach who prayed on the field at his public high school after games. And on Thursday the court in a unanimous decision used the case of a Christian mail carrier who did not want to deliver Amazon packages on Sundays to solidify protections for workers who ask for religious accommodations.

The decision is also a retreat on gay rights for the court. For nearly three decades, the court has expanded the rights of LGBTQ people, most notably giving same-sex couples the right to marry in 2015 and announcing five years later in a decision written by Gorsuch that a landmark civil rights law also protects gay, lesbian and transgender people from employment discrimination.

In the latest decision, however, Gorsuch said that a ruling against Smith would allow the government “to force all manner of artists, speechwriters, and others whose services involve speech to speak what they do not believe on pain of penalty.” For example, a gay website designer could be forced to design websites for an organization that advocates against same-sex marriage, he wrote. “Countless other creative professionals, too, could be forced to choose between remaining silent, producing speech that violates their beliefs, or speaking their minds and incurring sanctions for doing so.”

The court’s dissenting liberal justices led by Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned that the decision will allow a range of businesses to discriminate.

“Today, the Court, for the first time in its history, grants a business open to the public a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of a protected class,” Sotomayor wrote in a dissent joined by Justice Elena Kagan and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Sotomayor, who read a summary of her dissent in court to underscore her disagreement, said that the decision’s logic “cannot be limited to discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.” A website designer could refuse to create a wedding website for an interracial couple, a stationer could refuse to sell a birth announcement for a disabled couple, and a large retail store could limit its portrait services to “traditional” families, she wrote.

President Joe Biden said in a statement that the ruling was “disappointing,” adding that it “weakens long-standing laws that protect all Americans against discrimination in public accommodations – including people of color, people with disabilities, people of faith, and women.”

Sotomayor referenced the court’s history with the issue of gay rights in her dissent, writing: “The LGBT rights movement has made historic strides, and I am proud of the role this Court has recently played in that history. Today, however, we are taking steps backward.”

“Today is a sad day in American constitutional law and in the lives of LGBT people. … the immediate, symbolic effect of the decision is to mark gays and lesbians for second-class status,” she wrote at another point.

Even as it has expanded gay rights, however, the court has been careful to say those with differing religious views needed to be respected. The belief that marriage can only be between one man and one woman is an idea that “long has been held — and continues to be held — in good faith by reasonable and sincere people here and throughout the world,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the court’s gay marriage decision.

The court returned to that idea five years ago when it was confronted with the case of a Christian baker who objected to designing a cake for a same-sex wedding. The court issued a limited ruling in favor of the baker, Jack Phillips, saying there had been impermissible hostility toward his religious views in the consideration of his case. Phillips’ lawyer, Kristen Waggoner, of the Alliance Defending Freedom, also brought the most recent case to the court. On Friday, she said the Supreme Court was right to reaffirm that the government cannot compel people to say things they do not believe.

“Disagreement isn’t discrimination, and the government can’t mislabel speech as discrimination to censor it,” she said in a statement.

Smith, who owns a Colorado design business called 303 Creative, does not currently create wedding websites. She has said that she wants to but that her Christian faith would prevent her from creating websites celebrating same-sex marriages. And that’s where she ran into conflict with state law.

Colorado, like most other states, has a law forbidding businesses open to the public from discriminating against customers. And about half of the states have laws explicitly prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Colorado said that under its so-called public accommodations law, if Smith offers wedding websites to the public, she must provide them to all customers, regardless of sexual orientation. Businesses that violate the law can be fined, among other things. Smith argued that applying the law to her violates her First Amendment rights, and the Supreme Court agreed.

The case is 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, 21-476.

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​ Orange County Register 

Driver of Tesla on autopilot gets probation for crash that killed 2 in Gardena

• June 30, 2023

A 28-year-old man who was behind the wheel of a Tesla Model S on autopilot in 2019 when it ran a red light in Gardena and slammed into a car, killing two people, authorities said, has been sentenced to two years of probation after pleading no contest to two counts of vehicular manslaughter.

But should Kevin George Aziz Riad violate his probation, a judge could sentence him to four years in state prison, said Tatevik Tigranyan, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.

Riad entered the no contest pleas on June 22 and was immediately sentenced, according to court records. In addition to probation, he must also complete 31 days of work for Caltrans or another approved group, 100 hours of community service, 90 days of house arrest and a hospital and morgue program, Tigranyan said.

The case was believed to be the first felony prosecution filed in the U.S. against a driver using widely available partial-autopilot technology.

Riad was driving west on Artesia Boulevard on Dec. 29, 2019, when the car ran a red light at Vermont Avenue and slammed into a Honda Civic while traveling 74 mph, prosecutors said during a March 2022 preliminary hearing.

Killed in the crash were Gilberto Alcazar Lopez, 40, of Rancho Dominguez and Maria Guadalupe Nieves-Lopez, 39, of Lynwood. The two were on their first date, relatives said following the hearing, when a judge ruled enough evidence existed to order Riad to stand trial.

Riad and his girlfriend, who was in the car with him, were hospitalized with minor injuries.

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At the preliminary hearing, Los Angeles police Officer Alvin Lee testified that numerous traffic signs warn drivers to slow down as they approach the end of the freeway. Riad and his girlfriend were traveling from Orange County and Riad could only recall smoke and deployed airbags before being taken to a hospital.

Crash data from the Tesla showed the car’s steering wheel was kept near center, with sensors indicating Riad’s hand stayed on the steering wheel leading up to and at the point of collision, Tesla engineer Eloy Rubio Blanco testified. No brakes were applied in the six minutes before the crash.

Riad’s attorney, Arthur Barens, argued last year for the charges to be reduced to misdemeanors as any negligence by Riad would have only been assessed a citation had the fatal crash not occurred. The judge disagreed.

On its website, Tesla has stated that anyone using its autopilot should be a “fully attentive driver, who has their hands on the wheel and is prepared to take over at any moment.”

But the system only works if torque sensors in the steering wheel detect that someone is at the wheel, the Tesla engineer said.

Riad, who was a limousine-service driver at the time of the crash, was charged with two counts of vehicular manslaughter in October 2021, nearly two years after the crash. He was out on bail throughout his court proceedings.

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​ Orange County Register 

California students believed loan forgiveness would change lives, but SCOTUS decision leaves them ‘devastated’

• June 30, 2023

Born and raised in Highland Park, Marcos Molina, witnessed the neighborhood’s gentrification and the abusive tactics landlords like his utilized to displace residents.

Charged by this trauma, he chose to study Urban Planning at Cal Poly Pomona so that he could combat the recurring crisis throughout LA County.

“The privilege of receiving financial assistance helped me pay at least my tuition but did not help pay for my housing or costs of living,” he said. “So I had to take on student loans to essentially survive in school.”

By 2013, he graduated with $25,000 in student loan debt, and as the months passed he said he heard no word from the lender company on repayment. After investigating for himself, he learned the company was using an incorrect email to correspond with him, and he was already four payments behind — a whopping $3,000 was demanded up front and $600 every month going forward.

To make matters worse, it also tanked Molina’s credit score and so housing became difficult to secure.

“I was being paid like $35,000 a year so I was like, ‘I’m not going to eat today. I’ll eat tomorrow,’ he said. “It was just survival at that point — I wasn’t living.”

Today, Molina has secured income-based repayment and is slowly working to bring down his balance and recover his credit. Working for a nonprofit and living in Pomona in a friend’s home, he said he is luckier than most who end up in a similar situation.

But the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday, June 30, rejected President Joe Biden’s $400 billion plan to cancel or reduce student loans for millions of Americans, throwing a wrench in students’ and graduates’ financial plans.

The forgiveness program would have canceled $10,000 in student loan debt for those making less than $125,000 or households with less than $250,000 in income. Some Pell Grant recipients would have had an additional $10,000 in debt forgiven.

For Richard White, a 2019 UCLA graduate who still has about $10,000 in student loan debt, that means some serious consideration about his living situation.

Estimating his monthly student loan payments to be about $300, White said he was able to move to an apartment on his own (meaning, no roommates) in Long Beach when payments were put on pause during the pandemic. He was able to put more money into his savings and provide upkeep for his car since he drives to work — although, even without the student loan payment, his expenses did not drastically decrease since the cost of living and food and other prices climbed.

“The Supreme Court made its decision, and it is what it is, but I hope our federal government — meaning our president and Congress — can come together and figure this out,” said White. “It was a bold commitment from our government that they would support individuals like myself. There needs to be a bigger push to make sure something happens for individuals like myself.”

“I have to figure out how to limit my expenses elsewhere. It’s going to be somewhat difficult. I may have to change my living situation if I can’t increase my income,” he said.

UC Riverside student Ryan Nguyen is slowly accruing up to $60,000 in student loan debt before he graduates — even with about a third of his tuition covered by unsubsidized Stafford loans. Nguyen, who was recently laid off from a minimum-wage internship and is actively seeking a new job, said he might need further schooling so he can have a career that would more easily help him pay off his student loans.

With the pause in loan payments, Nguyen’s money has been going to rent and other expenses, he said.

For Phoebe San Pedro, a fourth-year psychology student at Cal State Fullerton, dreams like traveling to the Philippines to see her family will have to wait.

By the time she graduates, San Pedro expects to have at least $25,000 in student loan debt. Most of her parents’ investments were used to support her older sister’s schooling at UCI, and she lost some financial aid because she didn’t graduate in four years.

“I’m confident that I can (pay my student loan debt), but it’ll take time and a lot of putting my personal dreams on hold so I can be financially able to make a living and pay off these loans,” she said.

Ethan Huang doesn’t regret attending Caltech, a private university in Pasadena, but the alumnus said it came with a hefty price tag.

“I have loans and seeing the decision this morning, my heart dropped a little because I would have definitely relieved a significant portion of my loans,” said Huang, now a Ph.D. student at Stanford. “It’s devastating, to be honest.”

Others, however, were understanding of the ruling.

“I think that it would be nice for all students to get their loans forgiven,” said USC alumna Arianna Shapiro, now a law student at Loyola Law. “However, I understand why the Supreme Court voted against it because in order to forgive everyone’s debt, you need to raise taxes for everyone in America because that’s the only way to get that money.”

But for some, like Molina and San Pedro, a reduction or cancellation of student loan debt meant they could give back more to their communities.

San Pedro plans to go into a three-year master’s program with financial support from Disney’s Aspire program and hopes to become a culturally competent therapist in her community. “Not everyone can put their financial health on the line like this, but I hope there’s more like me to make the sacrifice for the betterment of our community and all people,” she said.

“In a perfect world, I would have enough money to open spaces to help other people who come from disenfranchised communities,” said Molino. “Getting my loans forgiven so that I could push forward isn’t for selfish greed. I don’t want my loans forgiven because I want to be a millionaire, it’s to at least live happily and help those around us.”

Loan repayments have been on hold since the pandemic, but borrowers are now expected to start payments once again by late summer.

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​ Orange County Register 

The best places to bike in America? Check out the list.

• June 30, 2023

What are the most cyclist-friendly cities in America – where the bike lanes are protected, the intersections safe and greenways stretch distantly into the horizon?

According to a new ranking of 2023’s Best Places to Bike by the Boulder-based advocacy group PeopleForBikes, Minneapolis came in first for most cyclist-amenable major city, followed by San Francisco, out of nearly 1,500 cities in the U.S. For medium-sized cities, Davis in Yolo County — the home of the U.S. Bicycling Hall of Fame — ranked first, followed by Ankeny, Iowa, and Berkeley.

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The rankings from PeopleForBikes are meant to reflect the quality of a city’s bicycle network. Six factors are taken into calculation: safe speed limits, protected lanes, reallocated space for biking and walking, intersection design, network connections and trusted data. Cities have also received numerical scores, which the group explains thusly:

“Each city receives a City Ratings score on a scale of 0-100. A low score (0-20) indicates a weak bike network, meaning the city lacks safe bikeways or there are gaps in the network. A high score (80-100) indicates that most common destinations are accessible by safe, comfortable bike routes that serve people of all ages and abilities. For larger cities, a score of 50 is the tipping point to becoming a great place to bike.”

Here are the top five best places to bike in 2023 from the large and medium-sized city categories. For the complete list check out the full ranking:

Large cities (population above 300,000)

1. Minneapolis (68 percent score)

2. San Francisco (63 percent score)

3. Seattle (62 percent score)

4. Philadelphia (57 percent score)

5. Portland, Ore. (56 percent score)

Medium cities (population 50,000-300,000)

1. Davis, Calif. (77 percent score)

2. Ankeny, Iowa (74 percent score)

3. Berkeley (72 percent score)

4. Boulder (68 percent score)

5. Corvallis, Ore. (63 percent score)

​ Orange County Register 

‘This is the existential crisis’: A push for climate change education

• June 30, 2023

Alex Brown | (TNS) Stateline.org

When wildfires and smoke swept through Oregon in 2020, Lyra Johnson’s family made plans to evacuate their home near Portland. Johnson, then 14, was told she might have to quickly learn to drive — despite not having a license — in order to get her grandmother to safety.

Thankfully, the danger passed before Johnson was forced to take the wheel, but she came face-to-face with the realities of climate change. Johnson, now 17 and a senior at Lake Oswego High School, was among the student leaders who urged Oregon lawmakers this year to require climate change education across all grade levels in Oregon schools.

“It’s really important to integrate that when you’re young, so you have that knowledge and feel like you can make a difference, rather than having it thrown on you and feel like the world’s ending,” she said.

Johnson serves as president of her school’s Green Team, a student sustainability group, and helped establish a composting program this year to reduce waste.

“It gave me a lot of hope, and it’s important to let students have that kind of hands-on experience,” she said. “When you’re actually doing something and seeing progress, it can diminish a lot of that anxiety. Kids should be able to have that experience wherever they are.”

The Oregon bill did not advance this session, but New Jersey last school year became the first state to incorporate climate change lessons into its education standards for kindergarten through 12th grade. Connecticut will be the second state to do so, starting next month.

Several other states are considering similar measures, while some have provided funding for climate learning opportunities. Most states have adopted standards that include climate change, but education experts say the subject is taught spottily and is usually limited to science classes. Some educators say there’s growing recognition that climate change demands a more comprehensive approach.

“Today’s students are tomorrow’s consumers, workers and voters,” said Glenn Branch, deputy director of the National Center for Science Education, an Oakland, California-based nonprofit. “Increasingly, they’re going to be faced with the need to make decisions about issues related to climate change.”

Efforts to require climate change learning have mostly been proposed in progressive-leaning states. Some observers have questioned whether efforts to set learning standards via legislation could clash with the typical multiyear process overseen by state boards of education.

Meanwhile, leaders in some conservative states say mainstream climate science is an attack on the fossil fuel industry, and some are pushing schools to teach “both sides.”

“What I think is controversial is different views that exist out there about the extent of the climate change and the solutions to try to alter climate change,” Ohio state Rep. Jerry Cirino, a Republican, told Energy News Network.

The Oregon bill Johnson and others supported would have directed school districts to teach climate change with a focus on local impacts and solutions. Backers said lawmakers were generally supportive but wanted to see a more specific plan with guidance and resources to help schools to meet the new directive. The bill did not get a vote in committee, but supporters hope a new draft will pass in the next legislative session.

Breck Foster, one of Johnson’s teachers, serves as a board member for Oregon Green Schools, a nonprofit focused on climate education and sustainability. She’s found ways to incorporate climate learning into her social studies and Spanish classes.

A youth group participate in cleaning up trash at Venice Beach for Earth Day on April 22, 2023, in Los Angeles, California. – Beach and river cleanups are being held across Southern California on the 53rd anniversary of Earth Day, started a year after the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill about a hundred miles north of Venice on the California coast. (Photo by Frederic J. BROWN / AFP) (Photo by FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images)

“Kids understand the gloom and doom, and there’s a lot of fatalism in their comments, but they don’t have a lot of the facts,” said Foster, who also serves on the steering committee of Oregon Educators for Climate Education, a group that pushed for the bill. “It was very enlightening to them to connect it to the idea of policies that are being implemented and goals that are being set.”

New Jersey goes first

New Jersey first lady Tammy Murphy led the push for the state’s new standards, which were adopted in 2020 by the state Board of Education. She said kids already see the effects of climate change, citing the wildfires in Canada earlier this month that blanketed the Northeast in smoke.

“Our children are seeing this as much as we are,” she said in an interview with Stateline. “To put our heads in the sand and pretend that the sky is not orange — they understand that.”

New Jersey requires schools to incorporate climate change lessons into almost all subject areas, not just science class, because “students have different ways of learning and every student has a favorite class,” Murphy said.

To help schools meet the new guidelines, the state has created lesson plans and professional development for teachers, and is offering millions of dollars in grants to support hands-on learning. The state established those resources in partnership with groups such as Sustainable Jersey, a nonprofit network that certifies municipalities and schools on sustainability standards.

Those tools, said Randall Solomon, Sustainable Jersey’s executive director, were just as important as the standards themselves.

“You can’t just wave a magic wand and expect 150,000 teachers and 2,500 schools to coordinate to teach climate change,” he said. “To really enable them to do it well requires the development of resources and tools, training and a way to track progress.”

Next month, Connecticut schools also will be required to teach climate change to all grade levels, following the enactment of a state law last legislative session.

“Every single kid I talk to and work with, this is what’s No. 1 on their minds, this is the existential crisis of their lifetimes,” said state Rep. Christine Palm, a Democrat who sponsored the measure, which was tucked into a larger budget bill.

Los Angeles youth and activists hold signs as they take part in a worldwide Global Climate Strike to declare a climate justice emergency in Los Angeles, on September 23, 2022. (Photo by Frederic J. Brown / AFP) (Photo by FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images)

Including solutions

Several other states, including California, Massachusetts and New York, are considering bills that would require more climate change learning in public schools.

“This is a very important topic, and I want to make sure this is happening throughout the state and not only in some regions,” said Massachusetts state Rep. Danillo Sena, a Democrat who has sponsored a bill to include climate change in state learning standards.

Sena said he is hopeful that the bill will receive a hearing this year.

Other states, including Maine and Washington, have provided funding to support professional development and training opportunities for educators on climate issues.

The Center for Green Schools, a project of the nonprofit U.S. Green Building Council that promotes and certifies sustainable buildings, released a report last week on the importance of climate change education.

Anisa Heming, the center’s director, noted that many youth leaders have become powerful advocates on climate change, and many of today’s students will need to fill jobs in emerging fields such as clean energy.

“Kids have a tendency to disengage if they don’t have a sense that there are solutions, that they have some power in the situation and the adults around them are acting,” she said. “We have to arm them with the solutions, and then we have to act ourselves so they can see that those solutions are serious.”

Climate skeptics

Leaders in some states, though, want to push climate change education in another direction. Cirino, the Ohio lawmaker, has proposed a bill that would “allow and encourage students to reach their own conclusions” on issues like climate change.

Cirino did not respond to a Stateline request for comment.

And in Texas, the state Board of Education directed schools earlier this year to provide textbooks that portray “positive” aspects of fossil fuels and suggest rising temperatures are caused by natural cycles, Scientific American reported. Board member Patricia Hardy, who drafted the rules, told the publication that fossil fuels help fund Texas schools and said teachers shouldn’t “just be presenting one side.”

Hardy did not respond to a request for comment.

Twenty states follow Next Generation Science Standards developed by a consortium of states and education groups, which do address climate change, most often in science classes. Another 24 states have enacted similar standards of their own. But the six outlier states include Florida and Texas, with massive amounts of students.

Branch, with the science education group, said the standards are taught inconsistently, often because teachers themselves have not had courses on climate change. That leaves most students well short of the comprehensive climate change education now required in New Jersey.

Leaders in New Jersey say their first school year under the new requirements has been a success, though some teachers aren’t yet totally comfortable. They hope the state’s standards, along with the resources it’s drafted to help schools adapt, can provide a template for others.

“I am desperate to get other states to join us,” said Murphy, New Jersey’s first lady. “It’s great that the next generation of New Jersey students are going to own this space, but we’re not going to solve climate change on our own.”

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a national nonprofit news organization focused on state policy.

©2023 States Newsroom. Visit at stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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