Our December issue has breached. On the cover: a humpback whale off the coast of San Diego captured by the brilliant Domenic Biagini, owner of @gonewhalewatching. Check out his work at @dolphindronedom.

December 2022 is a whole issue dedicated to the environment. “Whoa, what. Just tell me about the best tacos, San Diego Magazine.” We’ll still do that, we swear. If it helps, think about these as the sort of conversations people have over tacos. And it seems making sure we don’t hand future generations a burning fireball of toxic dust bunnies is a pretty good conversation to start with. So this issue is dedicated to what extraordinary San Diegans are doing about it.

Centering an issue around sustainability is ironic, we know. We’re a magazine made of dead trees with words printed in oil-based ink, delivered by trucks. We’ve joined PrintReleaf, which measures all the paper we use and then works with global certified reforestation projects to replace every page by planting new trees. We’ve also joined pledgeonepercent.org, donating one percent of our company’s time to volunteering.

“It’s not our goal to feign piety or greenwash ourselves or anyone else,” Troy says. “Zero people or entities featured in this magazine are perfect, far from it. The only way to be perfectly sustainable is to be gone. Our goal is simply to be part of the discussion about environmental impacts and document some of the creative ways San Diegans are reducing, off-setting, and innovating ways to address the increasingly warm, dry elephant in the room.”

Thanks for being part of the conversation.