*BREAKING*
The third and final oil company, Terracore, has abandoned its application to drill for oil in Santa Barbara County!
Terracore has announced that it no longer is pursuing an application to drill new oil wells in Cat Canyon, in the northern part of Santa Barbara County. The company ended its multiyear pursuit to get an application to drill over 200 new oil wells. They would have single-handedly skyrocketed our county’s greenhouse gas emissions at a time when the science is clear that we cannot build any new fossil fuel infrastructure and have a chance at a liveable–let alone healthy–climate.
This is the product of years of work by organizers, including our partners Safe Energy Now!, Food and Water Watch, Lideres Campesinas, SBCAN, CAUSE, Sierra Club, and EDC, among many others. See the full press release and the work done by many different organizations here:
This is a clear victory for the climate and humanity. It is also an indictment of oil companies who have made it abundantly clear that they care only about their profits. As soon as the economic conditions were no longer favorable due to COVID, they easily abandoned their workers alongside the project. As Movement Generation, alongside brilliant grassroots organizers, have aptly observed: while the transition away from fossil fuels is inevitable, justice is not. It requires us building a just transition here at home.
The transition is also inevitable, but it may not happen quickly enough. We need to ensure that no new oil projects are pursued across the United States–not just here in Santa Barbara County. Transitioning our economy away from emissions-intensive projects and ensuring workers are protected requires us to take action at a national level now. Trump has made it abundantly clear that he aims to open up more public lands for fossil fuel extraction; to him, this is all a game. If you haven’t voted today yet, make sure to vote!