Even though Jane Mayer’s Dark Money book came out 10 yrs ago, it’s still essential reading for anyone dealing with the enviro/climate/energy politics of today.
She really helps to expand just how *prolific* the oil industry has been in shaping media, comms, education, and obvi politics.
For folks wanting to learn more about BLM’s western solar plan, this is a piece focused on Idaho’s blm plans but the broader considerations are pretty similar. idahoconservation.org/blog/here-co...
Sadly (but predictably) the current administration basically disappeared this entire solar planning on blm land. So none of it is currently moving forward.
But the work products are still good, it’ll be a helpful book collecting dust until another admin comes on.
FYI - blm already did this analysis during Biden, identifying areas in each western state that already exclude sensitive animals/plants/waterways/cultural areas and is still within reasonable distance to transmissions lines. blmsolar.anl.gov/solar-peis-2...
Might wanna reach out to the folks at Greenlight America, they specialize in this kinda stuff.
FYI - the negative campaigning is unlikely to work bc county commissioners would rather get yelled at by pro-solar city slickers than their friends in the pews
www.greenlightamerica.org/about
Thanks for the resource, I’ll gladly give it a listen.
But I want to emphasize, really pleading as a tree-hugging ecologist, we underestimate how much change is baked into our ecosystems bc of emissions we’ve already generated. Trying to “restore” or “maintain” many ecosystems will be … difficult.
Ex) I often saw the *possibility* of endangered bird/plant habitat being impacted as reasons to veto solar, even though ecosystem ecology modeling shows those species can’t survive past ~2040 bc of water/temp/wildfire impacts, not to mention invasive plants which will probs outcompete them first.
If you could craft changes to ESA/CWA to allow for accelerated permitting of renewables while not diminishing the defensive tools against polluting facilities, what would you change?
In principle I agree - but the public is largely in favor of renewables! All it takes is ONE affluent person to hire a lawyer to slow/stop [upzoning/renewables/transit] projects.
The people who benefit the most are busy with their lives, the person who wants to stop it can bc they have time and $$.
I don’t know what the answer is, but these small local permitting things in cities are the bulk of how *average* ppl experience enviro laws
They don’t often see how those laws also limit pipelines, plastic manufacturing, or fertilizer plants
But pretending the former isn’t a problem is also folly
I fear the bulk of laypersons experience are local examples where some enviro-law is preventing something positive from happening.
Happening near me: an affordable grocery store gets delayed bc occupying a now-empty building will have *some* enviro impacts.
www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/s/...
Keep in mind the data center large enough to make NYT headlines are flipping large! There are countless data centers not going off grid, and just using pre-existing infrastructure for energy. I’m not excusing it, just trying to explain why most (not all) get quickly permitted compared to renewables
Contrast point 2 to renewables: they require big footprints & need federal bird/water/wetland permits. There’s no common zoning code for renewables that have setbacks/sound/etc so local govts need a public hearing, everyone is mad, usually leveraging the nepa-bird/plant impacts to say “NIMBY!!”
Two things: (1) Holzman/Heatmap have written plenty abt anti-data center sentiments, from Ohio to California causing delays. (2) Data centers have relatively small footprints, usually within land *already zoned as commercial use*, limiting federal nexus issues and some states dgaf on pollution.
Pouring one out for … myself.
New: Tomorrow is yesterday. Life death and the pursuit of peace in Israel/Palestine. Relatively short, stunning prose, visceral criticism of Western policies written by US/Palestinian negotiators
Old: Amusing ourselves to death. Lamenting the switch to TV as a comms medium, reads like prophecy now
“A positive feedback loop with terribly negative consequences” is how I characterized some of these climate feedback loops in public presentations and I can always see on their faces that line landed
Data centers’ footprint can usually fit within pre-existing industrial/commercial zoning areas so there’s limited veto points/leverage.
It’s easier to ban solar bc they’re new and large in acreage so they require (1) entirely new zoning rules and/or (2) zoning change from rural/ag to industrial.
I lived in a place where it was sub zero for a few months of the year and I would need to purge the cold water in the line for 30-60sec before warm water came out.
^^ this is the answer. Doesn’t require power, and it’s easy to hide a pvc tube to the hot water outlet under the sink. The ppl who say “cold water is fine” have never enjoyed the satisfaction of warm water.
I see the irony was totally lost on him that all of US wetland/grassland losses have come because of agriculture. Never mind history, I guess 🙃
To reinforce your point, there are two podcast seasons of The Divided Dial devoted to your supposition.
www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm...
There’s the uncomfortable reality, they’re the same tools! The legal tools allowing ppl to stop/slow a regional transmission line (migratory bird impacts, wetland protection, construction noise/sediment controls, etc…) are invoked against oil/gas **even though the harms are disproportionate**.
I guess this is the crux: these tools that prevent renewables (none are true but I hear a lot: “batteries cause fires, wind kills birds, solar pollutes water..”) are functionally cementing the necessity of fossil fuels. Without interrogating these, don’t we maintain the status quo?
No disagreement here on the health and financial benefits of renewables. However, I’m weary of celebrating an anti-data center result bc the same legal tools can stop renewables. We mistake this advocacy as being “pro-health”, but it’s just anti-change; building renewables requires a lot of change
Help me square this circle: WV is one of the largest coal-dependent states. Compared to coal, gas is much better for ppls health. But, in comparison, renewables are INFINITELY better.
I doubt any folks who are anti-data center are pro-renewables. They’re just anti-change, in whatever form it comes
To layer on the irony, the more prominent opponents of the solar project were using the "protection of prime farmland" as the reason to stop solar. They themselves are real estate agents, selling most of their homes on [drumroll please] prime farmland converted to ranchettes/subdivisions LOL
This issue got complicated in a county-level zoning decision about whether to allow a farmer to host utility-solar on their property. Nextdoor "farmers" were aghast at the proposal, saying it'd ruin their farm! (but they were mostly 15-ac hobby farmers selling excess hay, not production growers).
Thank you for making this open access!!
Here's an 2022 CoA Idaho example of how the "farm" definition is distorting reality:
Farms with sales of $1,000 or less are ~30% of all farms but represent <0.1% of all ag sales
Farms with sales of >$1,000,000 are 6% of all farms but 88% of all ag sales
Can you add some European cities? I wonder bc this exponential decay curve-shape is somewhat expected when a city runs out of easily developable space, unless you build up.