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As Gov. Jerry Brown was making his way through Europe last month, striking an evangelical tone about the global peril represented by climate change, California’s Air Resources Board released good news about emissions reported by companies covered under the state’s cap-and-trade system. Its report showed greenhouse gas emissions reduced by almost 5 percent in 2016, propelling the state toward meeting its ambitious goals. And for that we can thank Mother Nature.

Volunteer Paul Bareno’s yellow shirt makes him easy to see as he helps clean up a stretch of San Diego riverbed. “We were here, I’m guessing, we were here about two months ago, maybe less. And we got it pretty clean. Yeah we hit the same amount of places regularly,” said Bareno. There is plenty to clean up. There are clothes, food wrappers and at one campsite, long strips of yellow plastic tubing that’s supposed to be a temporary sandbag. None of it is surprising.

It is now politically possible to poke a giant hole in San Diego Gas & Electric’s longtime monopoly. A majority of the San Diego City Council is open to forming a government-run agency to buy power for city residents – though it is not yet a done deal. In the past, the company has fought off such attempts to weaken its monopoly. Mayor Kevin Faulconer’s administration is going to be coming up with a business plan for such an agency over the next several months.

With Tijuana and other rapidly growing coastal cities heavily dependent on the Colorado River, Baja California urgently needs to find new water sources. Baja California Gov. Francisco Vega de Lamadrid’s administration has offered a solution: Build the largest desalination plant in the Western Hemisphere, enough to ensure a supply for decades to come. But plans for the reverse-osmosis facility in Rosarito Beach, a project that at full capacity would desalinate 100 million gallons daily, have come under unprecedented scrutiny at a politically sensitive moment.

Wastewater recycling doesn’t get a lot of love. The idea that you would water your roses with water that you flushed down your toilet leaves most a little squeamish. We know the water has been treated, but we also know where it came from. The technology itself has been around for decades. Padre Dam Water District in Santee has been recycling its wastewater for over 50 years.