Halloween is a special holiday for children – it’s one of the few times a year when the entire country actively encourages kids and adults to engage their creative sides, build outrageous/brilliant/hilarious costumes, place decorative gourds on our front porches, and eat too much candy.

A major focus of the coverage during this week's Climate Week in New York was the costs of climate change to businesses and the dawning realization that advanced energy is increasingly a good economic bet.

Just as children’s minds are formed by what they read, so too is our national narrative formed by how our media frame and report the news. So reading really is fundamental - both to our kids, and to the health of our planet.

In one of his final acts as the President pro Tem of the California State Senate, Darrell Steinberg penned a letter to Assemblyman Henry Perea over the weekend with the news that AB 69, which takes aim at California’s cap and trade program, would not receive a hearing before the end of this year’s legislative session.

As you might expect, here at Next Generation we spend a lot of time talking and writing about the next generation of Americans – what they need to thrive and how to make the best world for them to do it in. This week, however, we featured a blog post by a member of that new generation.

Last Sunday, Smokey the Bear, America’s venerable protector of the forest, celebrated his 70th birthday. In this age of mega-wildfires – some suggest Smokey has outlived his usefulness and should be put out to pasture. As a Californian residing at the base of the Santa Clara foothills, I couldn’t disagree more.

The U.S. economy faces significant risks from unmitigated climate change. The Risky Business report presents a new approach to understanding these risks for key U.S. business sectors, and provides business leaders with a framework for measuring and mitigating their own exposure to climate risk.

Like we need air, like we need water, the research shows that we need words, spoken to us from our earliest days. The power of parent talk – reading and singing, too – to deliver those words with love, and in turn to set children up for a life of success is extraordinary.

In the midst of the state’s worst drought in 500 years, policy makers are desperately seeking stop-gap measures to address California’s dire water needs. Relief programs should help, but the aid is a far cry from the billions of dollars in losses the state ultimately expects to lose due to the drought, including in the form of lost revenue for schools.

Distraction, spin, and information overload – these are just a few of the problems we face when we attempt to sort out the right information we need for our kids and our climate.

Good news everyone! Well, kind of … Kate Gordon, Vice President and Director of Energy and Climate, actually reported on some pretty terrible news in this week’s California Energy and Climate News. In a recent Gallup poll only 24 percent of Americans worry more about climate change than say, the economy, unemployment, or crime. As Kate artfully points out, however ...

Next Generation Vice President and Risky Business Executive Director Kate Gordon today prodded an assembly of utility managers to consider the risks of climate change in their long-range planning, during a panel discussion on climate risks at the annual Winter Committee Meetings of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC).

We all know that one weather event can't be tied to climate change. But there is no doubt that we are in the grip of major climate change and likely seeing the “new normal” that we will face in California – increased heat, less precipitation, more wildfires, poor air quality, rising coastal waters – all of which will have a dramatic impact on major sectors of the state's economy.

There are moments, in building anything, when it can be difficult to see the final product. They are common moments in any large undertaking, and surely there have been a few at Next Generation over the past months as we've laid the foundations for our most ambitious projects. This week, however, is not one of those times.

Leaders from across the American political and business spectrum will review the initiative’s independent climate risk assessment and share its findings with the industries, regions, and market segments that face the greatest risks from unmitigated climate change.

Despite the ‘self-imposed ‘retirement of Dave Roberts and the dismantling by the New York Times of its climate desk and discontinuance of its Green Blog, it was a banner year for media coverage of climate change – increasing by 30 percent in 2013.

This week the Supreme Court, the governors of eight East Coast states, Next Generation’s Kate Gordon and Risky Business Co-Chair Tom Steyer clarify why borders, lines of demarcation and geographic regions are vitally important.

An expert review by some of California’s top economists has found that the oil industry has been inflating its projections of jobs that could be created by a potential new California oil boom.

International climate talks in Warsaw show modest progress. Colleges continue to wage divestment campaigns on oil and coal companies.

Next Generation today announced that Kate Gordon, Vice President and Director of the Energy & Climate Program, has been named one of the 50 most influential policy advocates in the United States by Campaigns & Elections Magazine.

Last week's UNEP report says despite efforts emissions will rise up to 27%. What does climate change have to do with Typhoon Haiyan?

After 365 days, Hurricane Sandy may have receded from the collective consciousness, but for people who lived along the path of the hurricane, their lives, as they knew them, are over forever. This week we remember them and look forward to all the progress happening today, like California signing The Pacific Coast Action Plan on Climate and Energy, an agreement with Oregon, Washington and British C

Clear lakes and powdery slopes power a massive $106 billion tourism sector in California. Lake Tahoe’s tourism sector alone furnishes 17,000 local jobs. But a lot of visitors leave the lake unaware that its clear waters—and the local economy they sustain—may be at risk from our changing climate.

The impact of Hurricane Sandy continues today and NY works to protect itself from future climate-driven disasters. Energy-related carbon dioxide pollution in the U.S. reaches its lowest levels since 1994.

The 5th assessment by the IPCC is out. Bloomberg, Paulsen, and Steyer launch Risky Business project. The government shutdown affects federal agencies involved with climate and energy.

The Risky Business initiative will quantify the economic risks the United States faces from the impacts of climate change.

We’re now about as certain that climate change is real and man-made as we are that cigarettes kill. To take the analogy further, by not acting to curb climate change, we’re immersing the planet in a huge, inescapable cloud of second-hand smoke.

The IPCC gathers this week to approve parts of the 5th assessment report. The EPA issues regulations for new power plants, and Governor Brown signs CA SB 4.

California decision makers should ensure that any expansion of oil development in the state is consistent with existing rules aimed at reducing the pollution that causes climate change.

With elected officials and energy experts buzzing about the potential for a major boom in oil production from California’s Monterey Shale, little attention has been given to the risk that a new oil boom could undermine the state’s plans for addressing climate change.

Despite the claims by climate deniers that global warming is slowing down, evidence of the Earth’s rising temperature is ‘irrefutable’ and ‘alarming,’ to quote Secretary of State K

September 13 is the deadline for the California legislature to pass its final bills, and Sacramento is hopping.

Over 4,000 firefighters continue to battle the Rim Fire, the 11th-largest wildfire in California history. Sen. Fran Pavley’s bill requiring oil and gas companies to publicly disclose the chemicals used during the fracking process is brewing a ‘Coca-Cola’ battle over trade secret protection.

Harvard professor Robert Stavins guest posts this week. Check out his latest essay on California’s cap-and-trade program, from his excellent blog, "An Economic View of the Environment."

President Obama has re-prioritized his domestic agenda and boldly will move on climate change. Interlocking policy efforts by the departments headed by Moniz, McCarthy and Jewell comprise an indispensable part of the White House strategy.

Three new reports directly address the fragile state of the planet. The first discloses that carbon emissions have already locked in 4 feet of future sea-level rise.

Extreme weather is picking up like Barry Bonds' home run average in 2001.

News that matters to the Next Generation.

Sometimes we all need a reminder that we have the power, and agency, to do something about climate change.

News that matters to the Next Generation.

News that matters to the Next Generation.

We can't deny rights to the disadvantaged and expect to solve climate change.

The news that matters to the Next Generation.

Next Generation's Kate Gordon offers her perspective on President Obama's Climate Action Plan.

The news that matters to the Next Generation.

The news that matters to the Next Generation.

Will the Polar Express be a cruise liner by the time the next generation is reading bedtime stories to their kids?

What can we learn from Chinese economic and environmental policy? Representatives from the LA Business Council and California Certified Organic Farmers went with Gov. Jerry Brown to find out.

Why President Obama’s State of the Union Address was a little puzzling for climate change realists.

October’s seven best new resources for children’s advocates and climate hawks.