Search

California’s efforts to address climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions have earned it a reputation as a climate leader. Most of the state’s actions, however, have focused on the “demand-side” of carbon emissions: reducing energy consumption, increasing efficiency, using cleaner fuels and energy sources, and reducing vehicle miles traveled. However, as the country’s 5 th largest oil producer (recently falling from 3 rd), the state has never done enough to keep polluting fossil fuels from being produced in the first place.

It’s been exactly a year since Zinke inexplicably rode a horse to his first day of work as Secretary of the Interior – and it’s been a great year for the oil and gas industry, but a bad year for public lands, clean air protections, and government accountability.

This blog is in response to David Brooks’ recent op-ed published in the New York Times on May 17, focused on improving the health and lives of residents in Lost Hills, California, a community in which I work with Clean Water Action. We submitted a letter to the editor to the paper in response to Mr. Brooks' article, but the editors chose not to publish it. Still, you might want to read Mr. Brooks' piece before you dive in, here.

Farming towns are towns with lots of farms around, whereas company towns are owned almost entirely by the town's major company. The company provides infrastructure to