Dear Governor Newsom and the California Air
Resources Board,
Tonight as I watch another beautiful sunset
over San Francisco Bay, I can see the flaring begin at the Chevron
Richmond refinery for a third night in a row. At five miles
away I can clearly track the orange flame leaping from its
smokestacks. The air
is warm and heavy.
It’s the second day of summer, and fire season is
encroaching. I know I
don’t have to spell out the connection.
This scene perfectly captures the Californian
duality: our status both as
paradise and fossil fuel hell.
I am lucky enough to live a relatively safe
distance from the refinery, but I’m also painfully aware that
many Californians don’t have that luxury. And none of us are spared
the growing impacts of fossil fuel-induced climate change.
I want to join my voice with those
environmental justice activists in CEJA who are pleading with you
to take real climate leadership. Direct emissions reduction is the only sane and
effective approach, and we have been ducking that necessity for
decades now, thanks to the outsized power of the oil industry.
In its draft
scoping plan, CARB somehow finds it far more feasible and
reasonable to gamble on unproven and risky carbon removal
technology (for which there is no regulatory apparatus in place)
instead of scaling up
renewables, which are proven antidotes to carbon pollution, and far
cheaper in the long run.
Renewable are not “there” yet, you argue, and we
need to maintain fossil fuel industry jobs. But with an extraordinary
state budget surplus, we could easily get them “there”
by building out wind and solar to the required levels, while
underwriting a massive transition of fossil fuel workers to early,
secure retirement, retraining, etc. Instead of experimenting with new, risky
technologies, why not massively invest in a new electrical grid,
decarbonize our buildings, incentivize vehicle
electrification—especially for long-haul trucking—at a
far larger scale than we are doing at present? Why are we not planning for a gradual
decommissioning of our oil refineries, instead of deferring to the
lead of the industry and market vagaries?
The answer is
clear: Doubling down
on CCS and CCUS in lieu of immediately pursuing every possible
means of direct emissions reduction at the source merely provides
the fossil fuel industry with a license to continue polluting and
profiting. This will
cost countless lives and time we simply don’t have. The Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has told us that our best chance of
keeping warming at or below 1.5°C should involve limited to no
use of engineered carbon capture technologies. It
calls for a rapid phaseout of fossil fuels along with limited
carbon removal by natural sources such as reforestation and
enhanced soil carbon uptake.
California can and
must do better. Real
climate leadership is not extending the life span of the industry
that is killing us all.
Sincerely
yours,
Shoshana
Wechsler
Kensington,
CA
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