Prioritize climate and health
On Monday, Kern County supervisors will vote on whether to allow a massive expansion of oil and gas drilling with 67,000-plus new wells over the next 20 years. The supervisors must vote “no.”
With unprecedented wildfire, drought, floods and other extreme events in California, it is clear that we are already deep into climate chaos. We must wean ourselves off of fossil fuel use and shift to clean, sustainable and equitable energy sources as quickly as possible while ensuring good jobs for those currently employed in the industry.
Fossil fuel extraction directly deepens the climate crisis by emitting methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that is many times more potent over two decades than carbon dioxide. This is in addition to the emissions from burning fossil fuel products.
Oil and gas drilling is devastating the health of Kern County residents who live, work and go to school near these wells. People of color, lower-income communities and children are disproportionately impacted. One in four children in the southern Central Valley has asthma, among many other chronic health conditions directly linked to fossil fuel extraction and burning.
Renewable energy is our future with major job growth in clean energy every year. The oil and gas industry, on the other hand, is dying and no longer a reliable job source. It’s time to prioritize a just transition for oil and gas workers, their families, and their communities to a climate-safe and healthy economy. — Ellie Cohen, The Climate Center
PROFIT OVER HUMAN LIVES
The people of Kern County have continuously made it clear to the Kern County Board of Supervisors that the authorization of more than 67,000 new oil wells would undeniably harm our low-income communities, people of color and children. At this point, if the board decides to allow the permitting of these oil wells, they are clearly, loudly and unquestionably stating that they don’t care about these vulnerable and neglected populations.
It must also be stated that during a previous meeting, planning committee members Greg McGiffney, Ron Sprague and Lauren Skidmore made the argument that Kern County residents are misinformed and ignorant since they drive cars in the midst of a climate crisis. Unfortunately, McGiffney, Sprague and Skidmore are frighteningly uninformed and embarrassingly obtuse about the lack of public transportation infrastructure and have no regard for equity and mobility for all.
Kern County folks are far from misinformed. They have done their research. They are aware that one in five children in Bakersfield have asthma. They are aware that in 2020, Bakersfield ranked first for annual particle pollution, second for 24-hour particle pollution and third for high ozone days.
After hundreds of emails, voicemails, public comments and petition signatures, if the Kern County Board of Supervisors approves the 67,000 new oil wells, it can never be denied that they don’t care about the lives of their constituents. It will be painfully obvious that they prefer oil and personal profit over human lives. The blood will forever be on their hands.
— Maricruz Ramirez, Bakersfield
CRISIS
Whether global climate change is a crisis or not may be debatable based on your definition of crisis. What shouldn’t be debatable is that Kern County’s local weather is not a proxy for Earth’s climate.
— Jack Romain, Bakersfield
RENEWABLES AREN’T GOING TO ELIMINATE ALL OTHER OPTIONS
Everyone seems to think that renewable energy is going to immediately eliminate all of our other options. But that’s not what the plan is, and it’s also not possible. The point is to have much less dependence on non-renewable sources that are both polluting and finite. Our worldwide oil deposits are limited. If we don’t have alternate ways of doing things, we’re back to horse and buggy transportation and candles to light our homes and businesses.
Oil production still has to happen until a reliable and renewable alternative to many products, like oxygen masks, petroleum jelly and tennis rackets, is found. We will still need to harvest natural gas until we can master harvesting things like methane from cattle. We also need to have storage for wind and solar production that is sustainable and that doesn’t use components that are hazardous and contain non-renewable plastics. And while there are a lot of subsidies available for wind turbine and solar panel production and installation, they are not government-owned.
I do not understand why people seem to think that renewables are going to suddenly eliminate all the systems we currently have in place. It’s just not possible. It’s not even something that can be done in a decade, or even possibly a generation! So please stop digging in your heels over these things and work for our country to be the leader in making our world a cleaner and more efficient place.