Who pays price if Costco’s cheap gas comes to Novato?

Who wouldn’t want cheap gas? Who wouldn’t want their city to have revenue from a Costco gas station?

As a member of 350 Marin — a group of grassroots activists who are deeply concerned about climate breakdown — I can say we don’t.

Cheap gas and tax revenue offer short-term benefits. Three long-term consequences from adding new fossil fuel infrastructure, including this 28pump “mega” gas station that will go before the Novato City Council this month, include more global heating, greater air pollution and more toxic sites.

Science identifies fossil-fuel consumption as the cause of these problems and countless others. The consequence is collective and cumulative.

There is a bonus economic problem for Novatoans who are kids now, adults tomorrow: What happens to locally owned businesses selling groceries, gas or anything that Costco undercuts on price? What happens to the futures of young people in cities where community leaders invest in last century’s infrastructure, to address today’s deficits, at tomorrow’s expense of somebody else paying health and climate costs?

This is also a bonus immediate and long-term economic problem for Novatoans: Everworsening, more frequent wildfires depress our economy. Residents and tourists are worried about smoke-tainted air and quality of life. Adding this mega gas station makes things worse.

It’s similar to how a baseball player on steroids hits more home runs: More carbon dioxide emissions from every piece of fossil fuel infrastructure increase the odds that you experience worsening climate impacts, more often.

Some of us are Costco members, but until researching this issue, we didn’t realize that Costco’s business model depends on fossil fuels. According to investment advice firm The Motley Fool, membership sales make Costco’s real profit.

Those profits let Costco undercut other stations’ gas prices. Cheap gas brings new membership sales, because only members can buy gas there. Costco gas stations are not open to the public.

As Costco members and nonmembers, we ask Costco to stop squeezing profit out of the dregs of a previous century’s dying system that contributes to climate disasters, here and abroad. What is Costco’s business model for this century?

Meanwhile, damage piles up. Who pays for oil spill cleanups? What if the big earthquake we are all planning for hits Novato? What if sea levels continue to rise in the near future?

The initial mitigated negative declaration report was approved by five out of seven members of the Novato Planning Commission. Sadly, no amendment to the initial environmental impact report was required.

We have to take everything in account and understand that the real cost of “cheap” gas is hidden. There’s payment upfront, via taxes, to governments that subsidize the fossil fuel industry to the tune of billions of dollars yearly. The backend price is higher: Extreme temperatures and weather patterns create more horrendous wildfires, drought, floods, famine, and instability, which drive human displacement and are an existential threat.

More of our kids are already suffering from climate-related health problems, such as asthma or depression.

Petaluma just showed leadership when the City Council moved to ban construction of new gas stations by unanimous vote.

Will Novato residents decide these are fair prices for our kids and grandkids to pay for our short-term gas? When today’s toddlers are old enough to drive, the market will offer electric cars, not gas.

Bad air, wildfire damage to local economies and obsolete, abandoned infrastructure usually turn into problems for “somebody else.” The people who suffer most, usually, can least afford homes in safe locations, luxury air systems, or medical bills.

If you read this and think of the Chicken Little folk tale and the unfounded proclamation that “the sky is falling,” then maybe you haven’t looked closely at recent years’ climate science findings. Climate disasters, local and global, really have been accelerating even faster than predicted.

Our community should support locally owned businesses that keep our dollars in Novato and Marin; implement climate solutions already working in other cities (read about the initiatives at c40.org); and choose long-term solutions that make Novato a healthy, safe, thriving place to live and raise our kids in this century and beyond.