All posts by BenIndy

CA Gov. Gavin Newsom, California, Chevron, Climate action, Climate Change, ExxonMobil, Fossil fuels, Oil drilling

Shots fired: California sues oil companies

California goes on offense against Big Oil

The lawsuit makes California the largest economy to join the campaign against oil companies. | Ben Margot / AP Photo.

California is one of the country’s top oil and gas producers, and Chevron, one of the defendants, is headquartered in the state.

Politico, by Blanca Begert and Debra Kahn, September 16, 2023

Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a lawsuit Saturday against five major oil companies and their subsidiaries, seeking compensation for damages caused by climate change.

The suit, filed in San Francisco County Superior Court by Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta, accuses the companies of knowing about the link between fossil fuels and catastrophic climate change for decades but suppressing and spreading disinformation on the topic to delay climate action. The New York Times first reported the case Friday.

The suit also claims that Exxon, Shell, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and BP — as well as the American Petroleum Institute industry trade group — have continued their deception to today, promoting themselves as “green” with small investments in alternative fuels, while primarily investing in fossil fuel products.

It seeks to create a fund that oil companies would pay into to help the state recover from extreme weather events and prepare for further effects of climate change. It argues that California has already spent tens of billions of dollars on responding to climate change, with costs expected to rise significantly.

“The companies that have polluted our air, choked our skies with smoke, wreaked havoc on our water cycle, and contaminated our lands must be made to mitigate the harms they have brought upon the State,” the suit says.

Shell and API said the question of how to address climate change should be dealt with in the policy arena.

“We do not believe the courtroom is the right venue to address climate change, but that smart policy from government and action from all sectors is the appropriate way to reach solutions and drive progress,” Shell spokesperson Anna Arata said in an email.

“This ongoing, coordinated campaign to wage meritless, politicized lawsuits against a foundational American industry and its workers is nothing more than a distraction from important national conversations and an enormous waste of California taxpayer resources,” API Senior Vice President and General Counsel Ryan Meyers said in a statement. “Climate policy is for Congress to debate and decide, not the court system.”

California’s legal action joins dozens of similar lawsuits brought by seven other states and many municipalities seeking to hold major polluters accountable for allegedly lying about their role in causing climate change.

Eight California local governments filed some of the country’s first climate lawsuits in 2017 and 2018 that are now in state courts. At’s filing makes California the largest economy to join the campaign against oil companies. California is also one of the country’s top oil and gas producers, and Chevron, one of the defendants, is headquartered in the state.

A spokesperson for Newsom said the timing was motivated in part by the Supreme Court’s decision in April to allow existing suits from local governments to proceed in state court, rather than be moved to federal courts as oil companies wanted. State courts are seen as friendlier venues for plaintiffs seeking climate damages because they’re generally more receptive to considering state laws that deal with climate change.

“All these cases got tied up in years of procedural wrangling; oil companies doing everything they could to drag their feet,” said spokesperson Alex Stack. The “Supreme Court finally let these cases go forward this spring — the state as a whole is joining cities and counties.”

California officials have been contemplating legal action against oil companies for years, since at least the early 2010s, when former Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown was serving as California attorney general. The state did sue coal companies and automakers before that, alleging public nuisance harms stemming from climate change, but the Supreme Court rejected the arguments.

The links between oil companies and efforts to downplay the effects of climate change have become clearer since then, a former top California legal official said.

“At that time there was less information about the ongoing and continuing efforts by oil companies to mislead and misrepresent on the record,” said Ken Alex, a former senior assistant attorney general under Brown who led the office’s environmental section. “I don’t think we had the same level of information that they have now about that conduct.”

The evidence has continued to pile up. A study published this year from Harvard University and the University of Potsdam in Germany found that Exxon’s climate models from 40 years ago were spot on.

California joining the legal parade against oil companies could prove significant.

“Having California participate is a big deal,” Alex said. “These are difficult cases. They have five defendants who have endless resources; it’s not simple to prove what they need to prove in terms of misrepresentation.”

League of Women Voters, Voter registration

September 19 is National Voter Registration Day – Register at the Solano Mall!

League of Women Voters Solano County to register voters at Solano Mall

On September 19, 2023, a coalition of thousands of partners across the country will celebrate National Voter Registration Day (NVRD) with a coordinated democracy blitz aimed at getting every eligible American registered to vote in advance of local elections and next year’s presidential primaries.

League of Women Voters Solano County (LWVSC) is proud to be a National Voter Registration Day partner. On September 19, they invite all non-registered voters to stop by the LWVSC table at the Solano Health Hub in Solano Mall between 11 am and 3 pm to register. Please bring a California Driver’s License/ID card and social security number to fill out the form. Members will be there to help if there are questions about registration status and provide information on voting and future issues.

First organized in 2012, NVRD is the nation’s largest, nonpartisan civic holiday dedicated to celebrating our democracy by registering to vote as many eligible Americans as possible. Since that first 2012 celebration, the holiday has helped more than 5 million Americans register to vote through the collective efforts of thousands of volunteers, nonprofit organizations, businesses, schools, libraries, election officials, and friends just like you from all over the country. Thousands of national, state, and local organizations and volunteers will be the driving force behind National Voter Registration Day 2023.

With this year’s holiday being the last National Voter Registration Day before voters in all 50 states, D.C., and U.S. territories head to the polls for the presidential primaries, there’s no time like the present to get every eligible American registered to vote.

The civic holiday’s website, NationalVoterRegistrationDay.org, provides a listing of National Voter Registration Day events across the country. It also includes comprehensive and state-specific resources on all things voter registration and voting more generally.

For more specific information about voter registration in Solano County, including whether they are registered, where they can go to register, or how they can register via mail or online, people can go to solanocounty.com/depts/rov/

For inquiries about LWVSC’s National Voter Registration Day activities, please contact Craig Paterson, Voter Services Chair, at LWVsolano@gmail.com.

League of Women Voters of Solano County was first founded in Benicia in 2004 and in 2020 expanded to all of Solano County. Its membership includes over 130 members from Benicia, Cordelia, Dixon, Fairfield, Vallejo, Vacaville, Suisun City, and Rio Vista, reflecting the diversity of Solano County. You can contact them at lwvsolano@gmail.com or visit their website at http://lwvsolanocounty.org/

The National League of Women Voters was founded in 1920 and is a non-partisan organization of women and men that is community-based and organized at the local, state, and national levels. Its mission is to promote political responsibility through the informed and active participation of citizens in governance and to act on selected and studied common-good governmental issues and policies.

Benicia, Benicia CA, Benicia City Council, Benicia City Council Member Kari Birdseye, Benicia High School, Benicia Police, Benicia Police Department, Benicia School Board, Benicia Unified School District, La Migra

‘La Migra’ – It’s Everyone’s Issue!

Sheri Leigh speaks with Benicia City Council Member Kari Birdseye for a City – and Parent – Perspective

Sheri Leigh
Sheri Leigh, Benicia resident and educator.

This is the perspective of Benicia City Council Member Kari Birdseye, a 23-year Benicia resident and parent of two Benicia public school alumni.  As an elected official and a full-time communications manager for a non-profit environmental organization, Kari is a busy woman.  I ran into her at a recent Benicia Arts Council event and was grateful that she was willing to give me her perspective on the La Migra Games.  We had a very informative phone conversation between her work-related engagements.  

Benicia City Council Member, 23-year Benicia resident, and parent of two speaks to Sheri Leigh about ‘La Migra.’ | Photo from Kari Birdseye’s 2022 Campaign.

Benicia City Council Member Kari Birdseye and the other members of the Benicia City Council stand together with the Benicia police and the Benicia Unified School District (BUSD) on the matter of the student-orchestrated, traditional annual chase game they call La Migra.  Recognizing the racist overtone that is self-evident in the title of the game, the potential physical and emotional harm to individuals, and the ongoing threat to public safety, they want the games stopped – permanently.  This year, City Council and staff publicly acknowledged that this is a community issue that affects everyone in Benicia and teamed up with other municipal stakeholders.  

Ms. Birdseye is proud of the efforts that took place between City Hall, the police, and the school district this last year.  All three agencies worked together to notify the public about the upcoming game, sending out emails and issuing warning notices on their websites, in local news publications, and on social media pages.  The school district actively reached out to BUSD parents to educate them about the dangers of the game, urging them not to allow their children to participate.  Student leaders also urged their classmates to stay away from the games and out of trouble. The police department put extra patrols on duty on the night that was selected for the game.  

Click to enlarge. On March 29, 2023, BUSD issued a warning to parents and families of students that the game was imminent, describing its rules and warning of the potential physical and emotional harm.

According to Council Member Birdseye, the coordinated agency efforts made some impact: student participation was down from the previous year.  Over the course of the evening, police ‘apprehended’ dozens of students, keeping them at the station until they were safely remanded to parent or guardian custody.  When parents and guardians arrived at the station, they were provided with information about the game and warned to be more cautious about and aware of their children’s activities.  

The La Migra “games” has been going on for decades. They were happening when Ms. Birdseye’s children were in high school, and they vividly recall the experience.  Her daughter, who graduated in 2017, was (and still is) a social-justice warrior.  She was offended by La Migra games as a high school freshman, immediately seeing the racial harm.  Ms. Birdseye’s daughter actively advocated to her friends and classmates NOT to participate, continuing her efforts throughout her high school years.  She is now pursuing her Master’s degree in Education at San Francisco State.  

Some Benicia High School students have taken action against the game, posting warnings to discourage peers from participating. | This image is a still from a 2023 NBC Bay Area report.

Ms. Birdseye believes that the underclassmen are highly influenced by their desire to fit in.  They might not yet understand the harm or the danger of the game.  It’s the seniors, she feels, who should know better.  They are deliberately choosing to be in the role of pursuer, emulating and perpetuating a painful history, in effect weaponizing that history against our community’s Latino citizens and immigrants, and against those who are most vulnerable in our society.   

The work that the municipal agencies have begun towards dismantling this damaging tradition is just the beginning.  Ms. Birdseye assured me that each of the agencies, City government, police and the school district, are committed to maintaining their efforts to curtail the La Migra games.

But this is not just an agency problem.  We are all affected by this issue. 

Air Monitoring, Air Quality, Keeping Watch on Earth News

This replicable model for urban air quality management is a breath of fresh air

The future of clean air is collaborative 

 

Comprehensive urban air quality management sometimes feels like pipe dream, but what if we’re closer than we give ourselves credit for?  What if stakeholders – from communities, regulators, and analysts to tech and industry ‘partners’ – have already deployed a collaborative model for accurate air quality management that could deliver “democratized, hyperlocal air quality data” and ultimately help us improve the air we breathe?

Clarity, a climate-tech startup founded by a Berkeley grad, is marketing a new vision  for air quality monitoring. Using both existing and supplemental air monitor networks to provide all those stakeholders listed above with “real-time air quality data at a higher resolution,” its goal is to “[make] air quality management more accessible, cost-effective, and actionable than ever before.”

The fascinating mini-documentary above shows how London deployed over 400 “Clarity Node-S sensors” to provide “hyperlocal insights” to their population of 8.8 million. Apparently, Clarity is active in 60 cities worldwide, including Los Angeles, Perth and Singapore.

And, get this – in August 2022, the Los Angeles Unified School District installed these sensors at 200 school locations across their 710 square-mile footprint, “providing students, parents, teachers and the community with important real-time data about their local air quality.”

It’s a beautiful, well-marketed vision, and hopefully a peek into a future where communities like ours can access – and act on! – real-time insights on air quality  . . .  instead of relying on a plodding, recalcitrant, polluting industry to provide that data in a clear, reasonable and timely way.

Check out the video, it came recommended by a trusted resource. To be clear, we have received no compensation for posting about this, nor did we coordinate with Clarity in any way. This is just cool news worth sharing.