Exploring Possibilities for Alternative Transportation Options at Samohi

Exploring Possibilities for Alternative Transportation Options at Samohi

In August 2023, Climate Action Santa Monica engaged over 500 Samohi students and parents at back-to-school registration to spread valuable information about biking, carpooling, and taking transit to school. With the help of CASM team members, students, parents, and community members, we successfully gathered data about student travel patterns and preferences, and collected comments and feedback on current conditions. This four-day outreach event helped identify recurring concerns among students and parents regarding commutes to school, and revealed opportunities for encouraging climate friendlier transportation modes.


To get a sense of existing travel patterns, we performed a survey using a board and colored stickers. We asked students “How are you getting to school on the first day?” and asked them to place the corresponding sticker to a transportation mode on the board. This question was asked because first day habits (e.g. new job, new school year) tend to be highly predictive of long-term habits. The following is a recap of responses:

  • Car: 46%
  • Carpool: 16%
  • Walk: 15%
  • Bus: 13%
  • Bike: 9%
  • Train: 1%

Through written and oral comments, students and parents expressed a need for safer bike lanes, better bus service along key routes, and a desire for improving congestion from drop-offs and pick-ups. Nearly 50% of students expressed being open to using another form of transportation other than the one they’re currently using, except for bicyclists, who overwhelmingly expressed a preference for biking. 

Acknowledging these issues and encouraging dialogue is important, as this four-day event has proved. Several students have asked to be involved in future outreach relating to transportation, and some parents have asked how they can get involved or who they should contact about a particular concern (e.g. one parent contacted Big Blue Bus to ask why Route 18 doesn’t have more frequent service around school start times). CASM will continue to engage and receive inclusive input from students, parents, and community members on school commuting to help identify opportunities for expanding and improving alternatives, alleviate congestion, improve air quality, and address much needed changes to our biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions (transportation).

Samohi bike racks at full capacity on October 10, 2023

One would be forgiven for thinking this picture is from one of Santa Monica High School’s Bike It! Walk It! Bus It! events or the former Bike to School event. The truth, however, is that this is just an ordinary Tuesday morning. A morning where the set of bike racks on the North Eastern side of campus are at full capacity, which is a testament to the success of the many bike infrastructure improvements made in the past decade serving Santa Monica High School and surrounding areas. One wonders now if this infrastructure can be expanded even further, to provide even more students the ability to choose this self-powered vehicle as an option to get to class. 

Getting more students to bike has a wide range of benefits for both students and the community. When used as a substitute for car travel, biking reduces vehicle miles traveled which leads to reduced levels of pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and congestion on our roadways. Students benefit from the increased physical activity, and studies have shown that biking can help boost mental health leading to better academic performance. We should continue to encourage more biking (and walking) to school, for healthier students, a healthier planet, and a healthier community. 

RECORDING: SAMOCAN with Dana Nuccitelli from Citizen’s Climate Lobby

RECORDING: SAMOCAN with Dana Nuccitelli from Citizen’s Climate Lobby



On October 19, 2023, SAMOCAN hosted Dana Nuccitelli, the Research Coordinator for Citizens Climate Lobby.  Dana is an environmental scientist and climate journalist with a Master’s Degree in physics. He has written about climate change since 2010 for Skeptical Science, for The Guardian from 2013 to 2018, and since 2018 for Yale Climate Connections. In 2015 he published the book ‘Climatology versus Pseudoscience’, and he has also authored ten peer-reviewed climate studies, including a 2013 paper that found a 97% consensus among peer-reviewed climate science research that humans are the primary cause of global warming. With Dana’s experience he will be discussing what National Permitting Reform is and why it will help us reach our climate goals.

More about the speaker:

Dana joined CCL’s staff in 2021 after 9 years as a volunteer with its Sacramento chapter. During that time, he gave dozens of presentations all around California about climate change impacts like wildfires and droughts, and policy solutions like carbon fee and dividend. Dana has also led CCL’s Science Policy Team since 2017. In his free time, Dana enjoys playing tennis and spending time with his dogs. In recognition of his climate journalism and education work, Dana won the prestigious SEAL Environmental Journalism Award in 2022 and the National Center for Science Education Friend of the Planet Award in 2016.

Climate Jobs Corps



Santa Monica Hires Local Youth

We are excited to announce that the City of Santa Monica, working with CASM, has been awarded a grant to create our own workforce development program. Funded through the state’s Californians for All program, our local Climate Job Corps will provide passionate youth ages 16-30 with skills and experiences in occupations that will be at the forefront of our battle against climate change. Empowering local young people with opportunities and frameworks to advance their careers in caring for future generations is a step forward in CASM’s quest to enact transformative climate solutions.

This program specifically aims to engage underserved youth, including low-income, foster, justice-involved, and unemployed. In addition to providing meaningful service in the fight against climate change, it is the mission of the initiative to provide career opportunities to those who have traditionally struggled to access them. Santa Monica’s Chief Sustainability Officer, Shannon Parry, sees this as a broad-reaching opportunity. “Empowering young people to implement climate solutions will help our city reach its climate goals and open doors that can help the youth fulfill their personal and professional dreams. This is a win-win for the whole community.” 

CASM is recruiting through Jewish Vocational Services, Santa Monica College, and other organizations and community leaders working with youth. In addition, the program provides career success resources such as technology and mentor assistance. If you know individuals who could benefit from this program and want to participate in climate action, they should please contact climateactionsantamonica@gmail.com.

#CaliforniansForAll

Meet our Steering Committee

Meet our Steering Committee



Laurene Von Klan

Meet our Steering Committee: Laurene Von Klan Executive Director and Steering Committee Member! Growing up in cities, Laurene saw a lot of urban grit and pollution. As a teen,…

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Kent Strumpell

Meet our Steering Committee: Kent Strumpell In the mid 90s, Kent drove a primitive electric vehicle that only went 40 miles on a good day.  Nonetheless, it still served…

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Judy Abdo

Meet our Steering Committee: Judy Abdo Judy Abdo is a founding member of Climate Action Santa Monica. However, Judy Abdo’s experience and accomplishments show her wide reaching commitment to…

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Laurene Von Klan

Meet our Steering Committee: Laurene Von Klan



Executive Director and Steering Committee Member!

Growing up in cities, Laurene saw a lot of urban grit and pollution. As a teen, she resolved to help create clean, green, safe, livable cities where people and nature could live together happily. This has been Laurene’s passion ever since, and she has found ways to pursue this goal by working in the non-profit sector, where she has worked in a variety of leadership positions. At Friends of the Chicago River, she helped re-develop, revitalize the River, and launch a national movement to restore urban rivers. What she loved most about this work was connecting to people in her community and creative activism.

When Laurene and her family moved to Santa Monica 12 years ago, she took time away from this passion to focus on being a mother to her son and she became a certified dog trainer. She and her dog compete in dog sports. And now, her son is part of the California Conservation Corps.
Laurene felt a strong call to return to community environmental work amid the urgency of the climate crisis, so she joined CASM as a Steering Committee member and is now CASM’s Executive Director.  In this role, she is focused on harnessing people’s desire to tackle climate issues by building a strong organization that offers opportunities for meaningful change.  “Santa Monica is the best place ever to be working on climate,” she says. “Just about everyone cares and wants action.”  Laurene loves meeting new people and hopes to get to know you at one of CASM’s events.

Meet our Advisors: Gina Garcia

Meet our Advisors: Gina Garcia



Having moved from the East Coast to Santa Monica over 35 years ago, Gina considers herself a native. In addition to her current roles as Co-Executive Director, Community Sustainability Director, and Buy Local Santa Monica Manager, she has worn many additional hats since she began her journey with Sustainable Works in 2007. Her first roles were as Outreach Volunteer and Workshop Instructor. In early 2009, she became the Coordinator of the Student Greening Program and supervised its expansion into the Los Angeles Community College District breaking participation records at Santa Monica College. In August 2010, Gina transferred to the Residential Greening Program as its Director, a position which allowed her to bring issues of sustainability to a broader segment of the Los Angeles Community. When the Residential Greening Program transitioned to the Community Sustainability Program in 2013, Gina began the coordination of city-wide community events, producing over 50 events to date. Gina became Co-Executive Director of Sustainable Works in July 2014, executing the mission and managing the overall operations and growth of the organization. As an Advisory Board Member of Climate Action Santa Monica (CASM), a local grassroots organization dedicated to empowering the community to action on climate change, Gina has the opportunity to connect with and learn from another local nonprofit. She draws inspiration from her family and strives to be a model for her two daughters. She holds a BA in Speech & Theater from Montclair State University and a certification in Horticulture from UCLA.

Meet our Advisors: Jeff Bush

Meet our Advisors: Jeff Bush



Jeff Bush is a long-time resident of Santa Monica and has many years of corporate energy and utility industry experience. He has served in analytical, regulatory, managerial, and business development roles, developed new service offerings, and testified as a witness before the California Public Utilities Commission.  He also helped structure energy transactions to help corporations, commercial businesses, and universities manage energy cost volatility, and achieve savings and renewable energy/greenhouse gas reduction goals.  He has been following the progress of the Clean Power Alliance and has helped CASM identify opportunities to enroll additional Santa Monica meters in CPA without incurring additional costs.  He currently operates a consulting business, Greenbush Capital LLC, which provides insight into the California and West Coast wholesale electricity, capacity, and RPS markets. He has an undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from UCD and an MBA from UCLA.  Having worked in so many parts of the energy industry, Jeff brings expertise to CASM’s efforts to accelerate decarbonization of our energy system. In his spare time, Jeff is an avid biker and runner. 

Jeff’s favorite climate action: working with the CASM team and also spending time exploring the great outdoors.

Meet our Advisors: Katharine King

Meet our Advisors: Katharine King



Katharine’s great talent is organizing projects that bring people together and support the community.  Early in her career, in her home state of Connecticut, she co-founded a statewide arts and education organization that placed artists in classrooms integrating the arts into basic education.  After making her way to California and briefly working in film, she re-committed to work on her passion, the performing arts.  For 28 years, she produced the Twilight Dance series at the Santa Monica Pier attended by thousands and showcasing acts from the world over. The Twilight Dance was a much-loved feature of local culture, entertainment and the local tourism economy.    

Katharine brought those same skills to bear in her work on climate. It was around 2006 that Katharine learned from a Bay-area friend about a new state law that would allow local communities to band together and procure clean renewable energy for themselves.  This was an alternative to the prevailing investor-owned monopolistic electric utility, and it allowed formation of locally governed non-profit entities called community choice aggregators, to buy and sell energy.   The potential and importance of this concept as a climate solution motivated Katharine to connect with others working to bring this concept to Southern California and Santa Monica.  Katharine gave presentations and worked with other advocates and local government representatives to push the concept forward.  After years of lawsuits, advocacy, and proof-of-concept around the state, local success was finally achieved in 2018 when the Clean Power Alliance (CPA) was launched as the region’s community choice aggregation organization.  The CPA has since reduced greenhouse gas emissions by over 1 million metric tons, the equivalent of removing over 200,000 gasoline powered cars from the road. Providing clean renewable energy to the community through the CPA is the top-ranking climate action in the city of Santa Monica Climate Action and Adaptation plan.  

It was in 2013 that Michael Tarbet and other members of the Church in Ocean Park saw a need for a local community group to focus on the climate crisis, and a small group was convened to explore the issue.  That group agreed to form Climate Action Santa Monica, and Katharine, who was active on the Church board at that time, once again stepped up with her management talents to serve as co-chair of CASM’s Steering Committee.  Katharine remains an active CASM Advisor and participant, and continues to support a number of civic and charitable initiatives.

Katharine offers this reflection on her work for climate.  “While it was a bit of a slog…to watch, participate in and experience the CPA going from mere concept to being realized it’s confirmation that climate activism can & does make a difference. We can’t stop now.  There’s so much to do!”

Meet our Advisors: William Selby

Meet our Advisors: William Selby



William Selby accrued valuable experiences in private industry before beginning his teaching career in 1981. He taught geography and science for different grade levels and age groups, before taking his full-time position at Santa Monica College in 1985. In addition to teaching a wide range of earth science courses at SMC and serving in several leadership roles, Professor Selby has organized and led many field trips throughout the state and beyond with his colleagues and students. He helped establish SMC’s Center for Environmental and Urban Studies, hosted their lectures series, and served as an advisor to the City. His work with SMC’s Global Citizenship initiatives includes the production of field guide booklets, films, and teaching geography, and science courses for the Study Abroad Program. He has been one of the most requested speakers for SMC’s Speakers Bureau for community groups, and has presented papers each year for professional organizations; such as the AAG, APCG, and CGS. He is a decades-long member of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) and the National Science Teaching Association (NSTA).        

His diverse research interests and professional and personal activities reflect Professor Selby’s devotion to earth science, geography, atmospheric science, and environmental studies. His book, Rediscovering the Golden State: California Geography, combines his academic expertise and practical experiences within California’s myriad landscapes to present an invaluable guide to developments and issues that are changing California in the twenty-first century. 

Selby was featured as science consultant in the 2020 documentary, Dry Times, a story about the impacts of California’s prolonged drought. He carries decades of personal and professional weather observations and climate research experiences from numerous sources (including the National Weather Service) into his latest California Weather and Climate Guide project, anchored by a major publication scheduled to appear next year.

Meet our Advisors: Jing Liu

Meet our Advisors: Jing Liu



Jing Liu is a Geography Professor teaching a host of classes that include Physical Geography and GIS (Geographic Information Science) at Santa Monica College. Jing earned her Bachelor’s degree in Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China in 2007 and her Master’s degree in Beijing Normal University and the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, China in 2010. She then traveled across the Pacific Ocean to the United States and earned her PhD from the Department of Geography at the University of Wisconsin – Madison in 2017.

Her research interests include digital soil mapping, citizen science, and spatial analysis. In her classes, she uses various spatial technologies to teach topics in Physical Geography, Environmental Study/Science, and Climate Change. Below are a few examples:

  • Using PurpleAir to guide students to explore the air pollution issues in different areas in Los Angeles, and lead students to critically think and discuss topics in Environmental Justice. 
  • Using Google Earth Engine and ArcGIS Online to guide students to explore the spatial variation of ground-surface temperature in Los Angeles, and lead students to find the environmental factors that may contribute to the differences. Students will also discuss potential solutions that can help solve the Urban Heat Island Inequity problems.   Last year, Jing advised CASM’s youth Climate Corps on using data to generate urban heat island maps.
  • Collaborating with Adventure Scientists Organization on the Global Microplastics Initiative Project to map and to analyze the hot spots of micro-plastic pollution in East-Pacific and US water bodies. 
  • Use SurgingSeas to guide students to explore the risks brought by the rising sea-level and the impacts on coastal cities
  • Use Web Maps and Apps to guide students to explore and think how location intelligence can play a role in combating various climate crisis