Being a student of forestry and environmental science, i had the chance to go through many interesting and good books related to the climate and environment. So i take this chance to share my experience of reading such a wonderful book related to the environment. The name of the book is "California Greenin’: How the Golden State Became an Environmental Leader". David Vogel carefully details how citizen mobilization, business support and regulatory capacity have iteratively enabled progressive reforms. This is a fascinating case study in its own right, but it also provides broader insights about progressive policy change – both methodologically and substantively. 

Vogel’s positive deviant is California’s environmental leadership. No other US state has enacted so many innovative, comprehensive and stringent environmental regulations. These include: protecting Yosemite Valley (1864); curbing hydraulic gold mining (1884); regulating logging (1884); controlling pollution (1947); buttressing enforcement (1940s-1960s); enacting the world’s first emissions standards (1964); 

establishing the US’s first coastal protection agency (1969); introducing energy efficiency standards for appliances and buildings (1977, 1979); incentivising conservation (1982); restricting tailpipe emissions (2002); adopting legally binding emissions targets (2006); and then buttressing this mandate (2016). By 2016, California’s greenhouse gas emissions had receded to below their 1990 levels. So, what explains this success? Answer: citizen mobilisation, business support and regulatory capacity.

Vogel presents three key drivers of environmental regulation: citizen mobilization, business support and (faith in) state capacity. This is persuasively demonstrated through a long-term and sectorally comparative study of positive deviance, understanding the causes of effects. It is a truly fabulous book, one of the best I’ve read.