Boiling Point: Intentionally destroying the climate is not normal
‘’We will talk about global warming. ... And we will act.’’ — presidential candidate George H.W. Bush, 1988
“There is a real problem that we as a world face from global warming.” — Christine Todd Whitman, appointed by then-President George W. Bush to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, 2001
“It’s important for us to reduce our emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases that may well be significant contributors to the climate change and the global warming that you’re seeing.” — presidential candidate Mitt Romney, 2011
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The Republican Party has come a long way. Not for the better.
Here’s a sampling of President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees:
- For energy secretary, Chris Wright, an oil and gas industry chief executive who says the climate crisis is a myth and whose Denver-based fracking company will benefit from Trump’s agenda. (Washington Post)
- For Interior secretary, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who supports efforts to capture planet-warming carbon emissions and store them underground but mostly so that he can use America’s public lands as an engine for vastly expanded coal, oil and natural gas production. (E&E News)
- For EPA administrator, former Rep. Lee Zeldin, who doesn’t have much of an environmental record but has given observers every reason to believe he’ll implement Trump’s radical climate agenda. (Marianne Lavelle, Inside Climate News)
- For Health and Human Services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose greatest claims to fame — at least those not involving bear carcasses and brain worms — involve undermining public trust in science, including vaccines and fluoride in drinking water. Both of which are safe and good for us! (Los Angeles Times)
Meanwhile, my L.A. Times colleague Russ Mitchell wrote about how Trump could slash electric vehicle incentives in a way that’s harmful to Tesla’s competitors but great for Tesla — whose chief executive is his close advisor Elon Musk. The Times’ Laurence Darmiento and Queenie Wong explored the conflicts of interests Musk could face as his companies, including SpaceX, face regulatory scrutiny and receive billions of dollars in federal contracts.
What else might Trump’s presidency mean for the energy transition? A few more stories:
- Idaho Sen. Jim Risch says Trump will reject the state’s biggest proposed wind project, Lava Ridge, as soon as he takes office. (KTVB-TV)
- A Toyota executive says the company can’t meet California’s near-term electric-car mandates. Will the automaker ask the Trump administration to revoke the Golden State’s authority to set such mandates, as it did during Trump’s first term? Yet to be seen. (Michael Wayland, CNBC)
- Trump can’t end the offshore wind industry “on Day One,” like he promised while campaigning. But he can definitely slow or even stop development in some coastal areas. (Jeff St. John, Canary Media)
One of Trump’s central campaign promises was the deportation of millions of people who entered the country illegally. Well, if he really wants to stem migrant flows across the U.S.-Mexico border, he should really stem carbon emissions into the atmosphere.
An important new study, which tracks with existing research on climate-fueled migration, suggests that climate-fueled droughts are likely to fuel more illegal immigration from agricultural regions of Mexico to the U.S. Details here from the Associated Press’ Dorany Pineda. Climate-exacerbated weather extremes in Mexico are also likely to keep migrants from returning home, the study found.
There is nothing normal about attempting to overthrow elections, undermine the free press and value some Americans’ lives more than others’. Let’s add “intentionally destroying the climate” to the list.
On that note, some more news from around the West:
THE ENERGY TRANSITION
It sounds like the California Public Utilities Commission has “concepts of a plan” to close the Aliso Canyon gas storage field in the San Fernando Valley, nine years after a record-breaking methane leak. Details here from The Times’ Clara Harter and Andrew J. Campa, who write that local residents and environmental activists are furious with the agency for not doing more to shutter the facility, owned by Southern California Gas Co.
I’ll have more reporting on the Aliso Canyon proposal in a few weeks, so stay tuned.
In other fossil fuel news:
- Newly obtained documents show that “1950s L.A. was ground zero for a tactic that has since become a key element of the oil industry’s PR playbook: funding a third-party community front group to sponsor and publicize research aimed at downplaying or denying the harmful impacts of burning fossil fuels.” (Rebecca John, DeSmog)
- Global fossil fuel combustion and carbon dioxide pollution are on track to rise this year. Also, the number of fossil fuel lobbyists at COP29, this year’s global climate conference, may outnumber the delegations of almost every country. (Seth Borenstein, Associated Press; Dharna Noor, the Guardian)
- The oil industry is asking Trump to gut or eliminate many major climate regulations — including a first-ever fee on methane emissions from oil and gas operations, just finalized by the Biden administration last week. (Nicholas Kusnetz, Inside Climate News; Matthew Daly, Associated Press)
Fossil fuel companies are fighting hard for influence in California too — and often winning. Just look to the San Francisco Bay Area city of Belmont, where City Councilmember Davina Hurt lost her seat to a challenger supported by large expenditures from Chevron, Phillips 66, Marathon Petroleum and PBF Energy. Because she lost her seat, Hurt will have to step down from the California Air Resources Board, which regulates oil companies.
Last but not least, more Americans are supporting nuclear power — but who and why, exactly? My L.A. Times colleague Noah Haggerty has a great story breaking down the political, climate and age-related factors.
WATER IN THE WEST
When Trump takes office, California will once again begin doing battle with the federal government over water supplies — probably. A key question will be whether Gov. Gavin Newsom sides more strongly with Central Valley farmers or with environmental groups, as the San Francisco Chronicle’s Kurtis Alexander reports.
The city of Los Angeles, meanwhile, will break ground next month on a $740-million project to turn wastewater into purified drinking water. The water will be stored in an underground aquifer, my colleague Ian James reports, and should help the city reduce its reliance on distant rivers, such as the Colorado and the Sacramento.
Speaking of which — 100 years ago this month, hundreds of people protested L.A.’s Owens Valley water grab by peacefully seizing control of the Los Angeles Aqueduct. An event last weekend in Lone Pine commemorated the centennial of the Alabama Gates occupation. Ian wrote about the festivities.
Other parts of California are taking other approaches to securing water supplies in the face of climate-fueled droughts and floods. Ian reports that eight Bay Area and San Joaquin Valley water agencies have reached a deal with the federal government to spend nearly $1 billion expanding San Luis Reservoir.
A few more water happenings:
- Why do migrating birds love salt lakes in the Western U.S. and elsewhere? In large part because they’re “fly buffet stations.” Alas, brine flies are in trouble. (Daniel Rothberg, Vox)
- When there’s extra water in Colorado streams, farmers and ranchers can take as much as they want — a loophole that helps deplete Lake Powell, even if just a little bit. State officials say it’s totally defensible, but researchers are raising questions. (Shannon Mullane, Colorado Sun)
- Good news for endangered Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep: population levels have stabilized after big losses during a super-snowy winter. (Jill Replogle, LAist)
OUR CHANGING CLIMATE
The Mountain fire is, at long last, mostly under control. But after flames burned nearly 20,000 acres and destroyed nearly 250 homes and other structures in Ventura County, local residents are still reeling.
We’ve all got a lot to learn and process. Here are some stories worth reading:
- Is it really possible to fire-proof your house? Or on a heating planet, does your home’s survival basically come down to chance — especially in communities built in wildfire hot spots? Here’s what the science tells us. (Noah Haggerty, L.A. Times)
- Local water agencies may not have been prepared to supply enough water for firefighters to fight the Mountain fire — at least for a short period of time. (Grace Toohey, L.A. Times)
- The Mountain fire destroyed a bee rescue facility, killing millions of pollinators. (Jenny Gold, L.A. Times)
- “I’m used to looking at wildfire maps of local mountains and getting a sense of which trails have burned and which hikes are off-limits. ... But now I know how incomparable that is to seeing the ominous pink blob shade the part of the map where your life happens.” (Paul Thornton, L.A. Times)
In other wildfire news, USC researchers determined that a popular variety of wildfire retardant is laden with toxic metals that can spill into waterways. Here’s the story from my colleague Alex Wigglesworth. The researchers managed to figure this out despite zero cooperation from retardant manufacturers.
A few more climate stories:
- Phoenix hit 110 degrees on 70 days this year — the most ever, by a lot. (Hayleigh Evans, Arizona Republic)
- The California Coastal Commission unanimously approved San Francisco’s plan for a huge seawall at Ocean Beach. Advocates say it’s needed to protect critical infrastructure from sea level rise; critics say we should be moving back from the water instead. (Tara Duggan, San Francisco Chronicle)
- California’s corporate climate disclosure laws have survived their first legal challenge from the U.S. and California chambers of commerce. But the laws could still face a tough road ahead. (Zoya Mirza, ESG Dive)
ONE MORE THING
Something strange is happening in Major League Baseball. As The Times’ Bill Shaikin reports, two MLB teams will play in minor league stadiums next year: the Tampa Bay Rays and the Athletics, formerly of Oakland.
Consider this: both stories have climate angles.
The Rays were forced to ditch Tropicana Field, at least temporarily, because a hurricane worsened by fossil-fueled warming absolutely wrecked the place. And the Athletics plan to spend several years in West Sacramento — a place where, as Bill reported, it’s already too hot to place baseball during the day for much of the summer.
Climate change: It’s not just a story for environment reporters.
ACTUALLY, JUST ONE MORE
Thank you to the good folks at Canary Media who invited me to be part of their live event on clean energy and climate in Berkeley last week. I enjoyed all the thoughtful speakers, and I’m grateful to the hundreds of people who joined us. If you’d like to watch, here’s video of all the panels.
For more climate conversation, I’ve just joined Bluesky. You can find me @sammyroth.bsky.social. I’m not leaving X, formerly known as Twitter. But I’m hoping to spend less time there.
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