Energy transition, image by Olivier Le MoalOPINION – In the coming years, we will learn whether California’s government, led by Newsom, will seize the moment to demonstrate the first fully funded, equitable transition off fossil fuels like oil and gas. If we do it right, workers will be the designers and implementers, and will have access to good-paying, union jobs for the long-haul.
Via ShutterstockTo counter industry propaganda and build support for the urgent action required, California must launch a creative, coordinated, aggressive, well-funded media advocacy campaign that connects the dots between the fossil fuel industry and its catastrophic impacts on our health and our climate.
Homes in a middle-class neighborhood across the street from an oil refinery in Southern California. (Photo: trekandshoot, via Shutterstock)OPINION: Communities living next to gas plants constantly worry about the next disaster, like the 2021 Russell City Energy Center explosion, that could upend their lives. Beyond safety risks and intense air pollution impacts, gas plants have also repeatedly been unreliable in moments of high electricity demand.
The Harbor Freeway in Los Angeles. (Photo: Jose Luis Stephens, via Shutterstock)OPINION: It’s time for California to change lanes when it comes to transportation. For generations, transportation and land use decisions have placed inequitable burdens on the health of Californians with vulnerabilities. Communities designed almost exclusively for cars, even for the shortest trips, increase air pollution and reduce opportunities for building health into daily routines.
An electric vehicle getting power at a street charging station. (Photo: guteksk7, via Shuttertstock)California lawmakers have approved a dramatic expansion of the state’s commitments to all-electric vehicles, with the goal of ultimately increasing the number of electric and zero-emission cars on the road. The $2.7 billion piece of the 2021-22 state budget was sent to the Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk on June 28. Newsom has not yet acted on it.
A portion of a plant that produces gas through the breakdown of organic waste. (Photo: Bertold Werkman, via Shutterstock)OPINION: Let’s play a game: what would you do with 25 million tons of organic waste annually? Here are a few tidbits to spark your imagination: Organic waste includes food and green waste, landscaping and pruning waste, lumber, fiber, sewage and sludges.
A windmill farm in the California desert. (Photo: saraporn, via Shutterstock)OPINION: In much of the country a powerful energy boom is providing a serious stimulus to economic growth. But in California, where fossil fuels are considered about as toxic as tobacco, we are lurching toward an anticipated energy shortage that will further exacerbate the state’s already deep geographic and class divisions.
An aerial and solar energy installation in the southern California desert. (Photo: Veeterzy, via Shutterstock)OPINION: The clean energy revolution is here, now, and California is a trailblazer of its success. Solar and wind power, electric vehicle use, rooftop photovoltaics, and community choice aggregation are all on the rise in California. The traditional centralized, fossil-fuel power plants are now competing with renewable and distributed energy sources, forcing the industry and regulators to adapt, and upending close to one hundred years of power generation and distribution.
An electric vehicle gets a battery recharge at the L.A. Auto Show. Photo: Juan Camilo Bernal) By the time today’s infants are in their early 30s, gasoline-powered cars that aren’t electric hybrids could be a rarity in California. That’s the goal of California policy makers who are doing their best to phase those cars out by 2050 and replace them with zero-emissions vehicles like electric cars, plug-in hybrids and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.