For One City Manager, Climate Becomes A Matter Of Conscience

Steven Falk still remembers the moment he first laid eyes on Lafayette, Calif., even though it was 28 years ago. He was driving there to interview for a job as an assistant to the city manager.

"I saw this amazing landscape of emerald-green hills and native oak woodland, with neighborhoods sitting in and among these verdant valleys," he says. "I loved it from the very first minute I got here."

The 25,000 people of Lafayette live close to nature, yet they can step onto a commuter train and be in downtown San Francisco in half an hour. "It seemed like I had reached some kind of paradise," Falk says.

The median home in Lafayette is worth over a million dollars. The people are educated and environmentally aware. They voted three-to-one for Hillary Clinton in 2016.

For the last 22 years, Steven Falk has been their city manager, more or less the CEO of local government, responsible for everything from police to potholes.

Then, in 2005, he read Elizabeth Kolbert's three-part series of articles in the New Yorker about global warming. "They scared the daylights out of me," he says.