Neoliberal California climate change environmentalism in action

Shock me that the state governed by the former Mayor Pothole is doing toothless state carbon offsets by funding "renewable" natural gas plants in North Carolina, extracting and purifying the methane out of hog shit. And yes, per the piece, California FUNDS something that is not really environmental, is neoliberal greenwashing, involves cheating within that and also has environmental justice problems.

First, of course, some of that methane goes into making fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides for the food that feeds the hogs that produce .... methane and shit. It's "renewable" but in just the opposite way from Gavin Newsom's idea. 

And, as said Devon Hall, an environmental justice organizer who founded the Rural Empowerment Association for Community Help (REACH) in Warsaw, North Carolina, about fifteen minutes down the road from the facility:

“Communities have been suffering with the swine CAFOs for many years,” said Hall. “Whenever you begin to talk about biogas, then it just further embeds the problem.”

There you are. 

The hypocrisy is compounded because Newsom signed into law a bill from the Cal Lege banning eggs from states that don't give chicken minimum room to roam but won't ban pork from CAFO farms.

Meanwhile, the biogas technology, a greenwashing effort by the Big Hog industry, doesn't actually solve the problem anyway:

The United States Department of Agriculture warns that the methane capture process can exacerbate certain water quality issues by increasing the water-solubility of nitrogen in livestock waste. That raises the risk of nitrate contamination of drinking water which is linked to miscarriages and infant mortality and is a particular concern in an area where most residents draw their water from wells.

Again, there you are. 

The story goes on to note that, back in Newsom's own state, biogas for dairy farms doesn't get the carbon reductions Newsom's state credits it for.

Worse yet? Newsom's California cheats:

Even more egregious, they say, is the fact that the program allows farms in Wisconsin, Texas, New York, Missouri and several other states to sell biogas credits into the California market for fuel that never makes it into California pipelines.

Cheats.

Go read more. I'm just halfway into the piece with that quote. 

No, there's more. California's hypocritical even compared to North Carolina! Yes:

Years before the LCFS existed, utilities in North Carolina were required by a 2007 state law to source some of their power from renewable sources, including 0.2 percent from swine biogas by 2018. It’s the only state in the country that mandates sourcing electricity from animal waste.

Again, there you are. The "only state that mandates" means no California. (That said, the mandate targets in NC aren't close to being reached.)

That all said, the story notes other environmental problems with the whole biogas idea. It also notes a shitload of environmental justice ideas. 

And people wonder why I don't vote Democrat, not only not for president, but also not for U.S. Senator nor any statewide state office. 

Texas Progressives get ready for the primary

Off the Kuff interviewed three Congressional candidates: Todd Ivey in CD09, Jarvis Johnson in CD29, and Justin Early in CD31.

SocraticGadfly offered up Part 1 and Part 2, with further installments likely, of Noam Chomsky in the Epstein files, and Chomsky thoughts background at this tag.

Well put thoughts by Mike Elk on singleness and Valentine's Day. 

Texans who want their governments to stop data centers should already know they're shit out of luck if they're not in an incorporated community, and if they lost an incorporation election, should STFU. 

Kudos to Lone Star Left for doing what Kuffner still won't and mentioning Leqaa Kordia. (I gave Michelle Davis a push.) Family and friends remain unable to locate where she's been hospitalized. That said, Kuff can write about things outside Texas, like ICE in Minneapolis. Pro-Palestinian protests, though? Never. 

(I omitted a link from Kuff about student ICE protests. Kuff, round me up a pro-Palestinian protest.) 

Neil at the Houston Democracy Project asked if Harris County can sue Trump over cuts to FEMA, why can’t Whitmire ever stand up to Trump or Abbott?

CultureMap and El Paso Matters mark the end of their cities' Alamo Drafthouses.

The Texas Observer reports on ICE locking up longtime Texans who had been on a path towards legal status.

Texas Public Opinion Research reveals how Democrats think they can win statewide. (They're wrong.)  

G. Elliott Morris shows how low-information voters have moved strongly against Trump.

Grist says pushing people into climate change actions can backfire — so what next?

Here's the big takeaway, in a piece it wrote about a paper to that end in Nature Sustainability:

It found that climate policies aimed at forcing lifestyle changes — such as bans on driving in urban centers — can backfire by weakening people’s existing pro-environmental values and triggering political backlash, even among those who already care about climate change. The findings suggest that how climate policy is designed may matter as much as how aggressive it is.

So, what next? 

First, note that "can" is not "will." I'm not saying ignore the study's findings and damn the torpedoes. I am saying that mandates can be framed in certain ways.

First, there can a be a push-pull setup, kind of like the "nudge" so beloved of neoliberal behavioral economists. (The last one-third of the piece discusses that.)

Second, there can be non-financial "pulls," like appeals to patriotism or whatever.

That said — and the research in "law-abiding" Germany, not the US — the problem is worse than with COVID lockdowns:

While researchers found a backlash effect, or “cost of control,” in both instances, it was 52 percent greater for climate than COVID policies.

INteresting. 

The last one-third also discusses financial "pushes." Make keeping a climate-unfriendly older heater, or some similar situation, for people who can afford to change on their own, especially, so expensive that, unless they're millionaires determined to cut off their noses to spite the government's face, they'll change.

And, per Grist, the study's authors acknowledge that even in "law-abiding"™ Germany, this isn't 1960:

The authors also emphasize that they aren’t claiming mandates or bans never work — seatbelt laws and smoking restrictions have become commonplace, for instance. But those were enacted in a different era and there was little public dissent about their benefits to personal health.

Times have indeed changed.

To me, the study, or at least how Grist extracts it, misses a possible, though not guaranteed, elephant in the room.

What if a lot of people who say they care about the climate are actually virtue signaling more than anything else, especially when the need for stronger and stronger action becomes more and more urgent? 

This is an idea that's not brand new to my mind by any means. That said, Peter Brannen's new book, "The Story of CO2 is the Story of Everything," which I read last month and which discusses just how dire the situation is and just how urgent the need is for serious, global action, has reinforced that.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not a Greta Thunberg, or the guy out west who basically won't do anything in life. (I exaggerate.) I currently drive a gasoline-only vehicle (but it was cheap and doesn't need to go to the dump), fly the occasional airplane (noting that that flight is a sunk carbon cost), eats some meat (but in the bottom 15th percentile, if not even lower, of Americans) and other things. On the other hand, I've called for carbon taxes for years, even though not that high on the American economic pedestal. 

Tex-ass primary 2026: Early voting launch day nuttery

The dreamy Don Huffines is in the polling lead to get the GOP's nod in the Comptroller's race. That's how far right Texas voters are going. Ben Rowan has a piece that's somewhat mocking of all three candidates. When Christi Craddock is your LEAST nutbar ...

From that? This:

There is only one certainty: No matter how conservative an elected official is, there is always someone further to the right of them. Much of the grassroots right wing in Texas believe Abbott—who has signed a near-total abortion ban, a bill letting Texans carry firearms without a permit, and legislation mandating the Ten Commandments be displayed in public school classrooms—is a quisling.

Is your takeaway. 

(I have long called Huffines "dreamy," because married and all, well ... you know ...)

==

Rethuglicans SHOULD nominate Bo French in the Railroad Commission race. He's so nutbar he'd make Wayne (Not A) Christian look sane.

Forrest Wilder has an in-depth profile of French, so nutbar that even Danny Goeb called him out — for antisemitism, the one sin that you can't commit in Texas wingnut circles, unless you're Nick Fuentes and Matt Rinaldi is protecting you. And, two years ago, the Dreamy Don pulled out of an event where he was at.

There's yet more Bo French nuttery in the Gene Wu article at the Monthly.

==

Trump's campaigns steal use of copyrighted songs all the time, so he should STFU when a Rethuglican, unendorsed by him, uses his image in a primary that has a Trump-endorsed candidate as well.  

==

Nationally, Thom Hartmann goes duopoly-sheepdogging. "Shock me."

 

Texas environmental news roundup

Does radioactivity from oil waste threaten a school in Johnson County? That's the Observer discussing the issue;

The Barbed Wire has something even more in-depth. As both note, there's also a 2,500-home residential development in the area. And, the whistleblower about the situation, Mike Oldham, has credible medical history about how the radioactivity has affected him from his time in burying that waste.

That story notes that the county is actually investigating, with someone who has relevant background.

The piece also notes that people who know, from another fracking state like Pennsylvania, think HOW the waste got there is fucking nuts. 

Will Hawk Dunlap talk more about radioactivity and oilfield waste between now and election day? (Living in a small county, I'll likely be voting the GOP ballot due to contested local elections; assuming I do, I definitely vote him on the RRC election.) 

Downwinders at Risk are among Texas environmental nonprofits kneecapped by EPA grant cuts. 

A 66-96 PECOTA for the St. Louis Cardinals vs deep denialism by many fans?

When I saw #STLCards trending on Shitter shortly after noon yesterday, then Baseball Prospectus' email came in my inbox shortly after that, I quickly put 2 + 2 together.

And, I think BP did as well, on their PECOTA for the Cards. All of MLB is here. 

So, I of course posted to Reddit.

Shortly after that, the first big reaction on Shitter that I saw was from Bernie Miklasz. He's far less of a Cards homer than Derrick Goold, so I generally trust his judgment on the Birds. 

His YouTube was linked and here he is:

I think he's mildly overoptimistic, but not totally so.

Cards fans? Yeah, 70 wins is not unlikely. But 75 probably is. And, beyond actual counter-comments with alternative numbers, the fact my post was only at a 60-percent upvote two hours later rate reflects, IMO, the deep denialism mentioned in the header. (It did get to about 70 percent a couple of hours after that.)

Bernie mentioned FanGraphs as the best. I went there. And laughed when I saw:

All told, ZiPS sees St. Louis as, you guessed it, about a .500 team.

To put it bluntly? FanGraphs is full of shit. And so I told one person on Reddit who referenced it.

But? I'm sure there are Cards fans who actually believe that.

Get ready to get crushed. And, you need to be crushed. I've long seen, over the past two or even three seasons, the level of denialism by many Cards fans on Reddit. Many of them said, "Look, we had a winning record in 2024," ignoring the Cards' Pythag being negative. (Speaking of, despite the team winning 78 last year, its Pythag was at 74 wins. The amount of subtraction in trades? At least 6 wins. PECOTA's not off the mark.)

As for the team, the National League and MLB? My active baseball fandom, besides the Cardinals, has been in the decline for a few to several years. The denialism of other Cards fans only hastens that. And, they need to be crushed. I hope the team doesn't even hit the 66-win mark.