1/The greatest challenge of our time is constructing a decarbonized economy. Passage of the IRA will spur a building boom not seen since the New Deal. But, @billmckibben writes in our cover story, success requires a paradigm shift on the left. #EarthWeek motherjones.com/environment/20…
2/ The environmental movement, and the left more broadly, has been all about "no" to development, be it pipelines or power plants. motherjones.com/environment/20…
3/ But now, we need to say "yes" to a LOT of development. motherjones.com/environment/20…
4/ It's a familiar thing to those of us who live in California to see people who purport to be environmentalists fighting the very things we must do, right now, to ward off climate change.
(Cough, like denser housing, more in a minute.)
5/ We wanted to give readers a full picture of what must be done. So all week we'll be rolling out stories from this package: motherjones.com/environment/20…
6/ But back to @billmckibben's piece. It's a mental roadmap for everybody. But *especially* as Bill puts it, for people like him. Folks who are older, whiter, used to using the mechanisms of government to stop things they don't like.
7/ But your local fight—to protect your view, or "local character"—has global consequences. Saying "yes" to denser housing, or transmission lines, or yes, mines—that's not a betrayal of old environmental goals, it's a necessary update.
8/ Opposing denser housing is climate denialism. Full stop. And it has a direct human toll on the ability of other people to have homes:
9/ This package comes from watching how California's housing wars have been playing out, where people and politicians who call themselves progressive have been fighting housing using the tools and language of segregation. Which is this subject of my piece motherjones.com/politics/2023/…
10/ If you live here, you know, just how mind bending it is for people who fight housing density to call themselves progressives. Like, say, most of the @sfbos:
11/ Progressive NIMBYs like to tell themselves that by fighting new development, they're fighting displacement. But scads of research has shown, that's not how it works. motherjones.com/politics/2023/…
12/ In fact @pewresearch just came out with another big meta study on this yesterday.pewtrusts.org/en/research-an…
13/ If you ignore a huge body of research for vibes, you don't make good policy. And yet that's what SF, and the leaders and activists throughout the state are doing. And who wins? Rich homeowners. I run down some of the excuses:
14/ Letting perfect be the enemy of the good—a San Francisco treat—is a phrase we use more than once in this package. We can't mire every needed project in endless reviews and hearings and have a liveable planet: motherjones.com/politics/2023/…
15/ Which brings me to a piece on CEQA by @CSElmendorf. This '70s-era green law is being abused to block development, or shake down developers—for even projects manifestly for good of environment: motherjones.com/politics/2023/…
16/ And yes, @CSElmendorf discusses the infamous 469 Stevenson Street debacle:
17/ But it's not just one downtown housing project. In SF and around the state, CEQA is being used to block so much good housing, so many green energy projects. @GavinNewsom has said he wants to reform. We urgently need to. motherjones.com/politics/2023/…
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