Climate Point: Environmentalists want Newsom to step up after they help defeat recall

USA TODAY: Enviros want CA Gov. Newsom to step up after they help defeat recall

Thursday, September 16

Los Angeles motorists pass pump jacks extract oiling at the Inglewood Oil Field, Thursday, June 10, 2021. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted on Sept. 15, 2021 to phase out oil drilling across the county.

Enviros want CA Gov. Newsom to step up after they help defeat recall

Plus: Wildlife sightings unite polarized mountain town

California Gov. Gavin Newsom addresses reporters on Tuesday night in Sacramento after beating back a recall attempt that aimed to remove him from office.

Rich Pedroncelli, AP

Welcome to Climate Point, your weekly guide to climate, energy and the environment. I'm Janet Wilson from Palm Springs, California.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom this week handily survived a recall election that could have put a Trump Republican who had dismissed climate change as a hoax in charge of a super-majority Democratic state. But environmentalists who worked to get the vote out, putting aside misgivings about what they see as his administration's slow pace on climate and environmental health action, say now he needs to step up.

"It's time for him to be bold," said Martha Dina Arguello, executive director of Physicians for Social Responsibility in Los Angeles, who also helps lead STAND-LA, a coalition pushing to end oil and gas drilling in residential neighborhoods ."It's time for him to take leadership from the people who helped him save his job."

While California has a long history of pioneering environmental policies, its first place crown is slipping as other states, countries and even cities and universities enact stronger measures and swifter plans to rein in dangerous greenhouse gases and toxic pollutants. Case in point: Los Angeles County's supervisors unanimously voted on Wednesday to phase out all oil and gas drilling in unincorporated county areas, including the massive Inglewood Oil Field.

Environmentalists reacted to that victory with unalloyed joy:

"It's fabulous," Arguello said. Oil industry reps, meanwhile, said it would cost the state badly needed jobs and fuel.

With climate change ratcheting up wildfires, heat spells and deadly storms, Newsom must ratchet up efforts statewide to slash emissions, argues Jason Barbose, senior policy manger with Union of Concerned Scientists, who lays out a laundry list of actions he could take in the next 14 months.

Major get-out-the vote efforts to defeat the recall were coordinated by the California Environmental Justice Alliance, said Mabel Tsang, electoral manager for the coalition's political action arm, including in Oakland, coastal Ventura and Santa Barbara, San Diego and Loa Angeles. She said it was "amazing" to hear Newsom "give a shout-out" to environmental justice values in his victory speech on Tuesday.

"This is absolutely a moment in which EJ communities really stepped up and voted based on their values," said Tsang. "We had a huge coalition ... coming together."

She and others say it's past time for Newsom to issue executive orders to immediately end oil and gas drilling in neighborhoods, to force the state's main oil regulator to release a long-delayed "buffer" rule between oil operations and schools and homes, and to sign environmental bills that survived efforts by affected industries to defeat them in the legislative session that ended Saturday.

They'd also like to see the governor extend electric bill assistance and critical COVID health funding in areas already hit hard by air pollution.

"Communities in need of action have been overlooked for far too long," said Cesar Aguirre, community organizer with the Central California Environmental Justice Network. "Now that we have moved past the recall, it is time to pay dues to the communities that have been given only empty promises. Living near chronic polluters weighs on our health and well being."

But environmental groups were not the only ones marshalling votes to defeat the recall. The state's powerful Building Trades Council, a coalition of unions representing 450,000 workers statewide whose leader has dismissed environmentalists as "extremists," also opposed the recall. That may have dampened heavy pro-recall turnout in critical Central Valley counties, leaving Newsom beholden to supporters with competing priorities.

Here are some other stories that may be of interest.

A fire burns in a section of the Amazon rain forest on Aug. 25, 2019 in Porto Velho, Brazil.

Victor Moriyama, Getty Images

MUST READ STORIES:

Deadly work. It's not obvious in the U.S., but environmental activism (like journalism) can be fatal in foreign countries. Last year, 227 people were killed trying to protect forests, water and other threatened natural resources, making 2020 the deadliest year ever for such activists, a report published Monday finds.

Environmental and human rights watchdog Global Witness analyzed data from around the world and found an average of more than four people a week died while defending the environment. In Colombia, CNN's Rachel Ramirez reports, 65 people were killed while protecting Indigenous land or defending forests. Mexico, where a third of the attacks were linked to deforestation, saw 30 killings.

The Philippines saw 29 people killed for attempting to halt mining, logging, and dam projects. In Africa, Global Witness documented 18 killings, a jump from just seven in 2019, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa and Uganda.

More people were also tracked down and slain in their homes because of COVID lockdowns, the authors said.

Tweet Patrol. While there were no killings in the U.S., Gizmodo's Molly Taft reports that powerful electric utilities are in some cases "snitching" to managers about an employee's social media posts objecting to fossil fuels and new projects, even fairly mild ones, and demanding they be fired, that Tweets be edited (not technically possible) or deleted. One company denied the claims despite internal documentation; others did not comment.

Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Park, California: One of the advantages of road schooling is being able to explore the outdoors instead of staying cooped up in a classroom. King's world school community loves the hiking opportunities in this national park renowned for its towering trees. "There are options for self-guided and ranger-guided hikes," King says. More information: nps.gov/seki and VisitVisalia.com

Credit Visit Visalia

PUBLIC SPACES

Giants at risk. Wildfires have shut Sequoia National Park and are threatening its treasured trees, some of the largest and oldest on Earth, reports USA Today's Christine Fernando. The KNP Complex grew to just over 9 square miles late Tuesday, officials said, and flames were within a mile of the Giant Forest , home to the world's iconic General Sherman tree and other behemoths. While sequoia are adapted to fire and depend on it to sprout cone seedlings, since 2015, higher-severity fires have killed an "unprecedented number" of the mammoth trees.

"We have reached a tipping point — lack of frequent fire for the past century in most groves, combined with the impacts of a warming climate, have made some wildfires much more deadly for sequoias," the National Park Service says.

Blown away. Hot, dry weather caused by climate change is reshaping the landscape in many Western national parks, bringing with it uneasiness over how plants, animals and visitors will be impacted. Sixty-foot high sand dunes at White Sands National Park in New Mexico are losing fine gypsum to Texas , as warmer, drier weather destabilizes the sand masses and high-speed wind events carry particles across state lines,

They are, experts say, literally being blown away by severe drought conditions linked to climate change. "The dunes are sort of like melting glaciers," David Bustos, the park's resource program manager, told Jonathan Horwitz in National Geographic Traveler. "We see them warming up and breaking down quickly."

Gypsum sand typically is so moist from shallow groundwater that he can cup it in his hands like a snowball, Bustos said. During drought, "It's sort of more airy. ..There's no ability to walk on it. You start sinking in. There's no solid surface," he said.

London at night, as seen from the International Space Station. Different colors are visible, showing different lighting technologies.

A. Sánchez de Miguel/ESA/NASA

HOT TAKES

Goodbye, darkness. Light pollution has increased 49% over past 25 years, study finds. Doyle Rice with USA Today reports.

Heated Hoosiers. Indiana is in the top 10 of dangerous greenhouse gas emitters in the U.S., per Sarah Bowman with the Indy Star.

Summertime blues. Almost a third of Americans were hit by a weather disaster in the past three months, per a Washington Post analysis. And 64% experienced a multi-day heat wave - not official disasters but the most dangerous form of extreme weather. Sarah Kaplan and Andrew Ba Tran report.

Mercury rising. Outdoor workers could be exposed to four times as many days of extreme heat by 2050, a report finds. Zayna Syed with the Arizona Republic has more.

A picture of a Trumpeter Swan at Martin Mere

Getty Images

AND ANOTHER THING

Did you see that? Towns and neighborhoods across the U.S. have increasingly found themselves sharply divided along political lines. But in one mountain town in Washington state, wildlife sightings during COVID offer a respite from warring political signs and angry debates, with rural neighbors instead sharing the joy of spotting wild turkeys, bears, trumpeter swans and river otters. Until hunting season anyway. Ana Maria Spagna writes about the lovely reprieve for High Country News.

That's all for now. May your week be peaceable, and for more climate, energy and environment news, follow me @janetwilson66. You can sign up to get Climate Point in your inbox for free here.