Feb. 6: Climate Friday Focuses on Clean Energy with Das Williams
When: Friday, February 6, 4-5:30 pm
Where: Community Environmental Council Hub, 1219 State St.
Have you wondered what local politician Das Williams has been up to lately? Well, find out this Friday when you join CEC, the Society of Fearless Grandmothers Santa Barbara, and the Santa Barbara Sierra Club to learn about local clean energy initiatives from Das in his new role as as the Director of Legislative and External Affairs for Central Coast Community Energy (3CE). Local organizations will also have resources available for participants to learn about ways they can switch to renewables and other local actions they can be a part of to advance the local clean energy movement.
Tell the Feds: No Resource Extraction on BLM Land
It’s never enough for Trump; not only is he gunning for new oil drilling in our coastal waters, he also wants to allow all manner of resource extraction in California’s BLM lands — over a million acres of important natural habitat, beloved recreational areas, and historic tribal territory that could see new mining, drilling, and fracking.
What can we do? Flood the BLM with our emails saying no to pillaging our undeveloped areas, and no to a fresh round of colonization.
The comment periods for both the Bakersfield-based and Central Coast-based plans are currently open through March 13.
Submit a comment here.
Tell the BLM why you love California public lands and specifically ask them to:
- Rescind and revise plans to open up over 1 million acres of public lands and mineral rights to oil and gas drilling and fracking in California.
- Rescind their incomplete Supplemental Environmental Impact Statements.
- Update these analyses by disclosing impacts now, instead of deferring to the permitting stage.
- Respect California’s ban on fracking and our state’s health buffer zone law, which bars any new oil wells within 3,200 feet of homes, schools, businesses, and hospitals.
- Amend the Resource Management Plans to value health and environmental protections over extraction.
Polluters Pay Update
The campaign calling for California legislators to make big oil companies pay for their pollution forges ahead despite setbacks. The Polluter’s Pay Potluck Picnic on January 25th was an uplifting gathering of local electeds and grassroots activists from both Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties. Banners got painted, postcards to officials got written, all while participants enjoyed yummy food on a beautiful day in a Carpinteria park. Since the picnic, the Ventura contingent completed a successful banner drop over the 101, and more actions will be planned soon!
State Senator Anthony Wiener “is preparing to roll out a new ‘insurance affordability’ bill this week seeking to recoup some disaster costs from corporations he argues are responsible for climate change….The bill will mark round two for Wiener, whose similar proposal last year stalled in the Judiciary Committee, the sole survivor of a broader push to make ‘polluters pay‘ that’s struggled to lift off amid business opposition.”
~ 350 Steering Committee