More Santa Barbara Oil Spills? Or TOTAL Renewables by 2050?

By Bill Simpich, Reader Supported News

25 May 15

ctually, it sucks to say we told you so.

Forty years ago, in 1975, the organization Get Oil Out (GOO) convinced 1500 of us to gather in front of the Santa Barbara Board of Supervisors. We called for the county to deny the permit for a proposed gas processing facility in Las Flores Canyon.

Click to see full “100% Renewable California” full size graphic from The Solutions Project.

GOO erupted after the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, where more than three million gallons oil flooded the beaches and massacred wildlife.

In the next twelve months, Congress passed the National Environmental Protection Act, Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency, and Senator Gaylord Nelson organized the first Earth Day. The environmental movement had come of age, and these moments were cornerstones of that legacy. It is difficult to overestimate the impact of that oil spill on the American consciousness.

Just five years later, Big Oil's argument to the still-enraged citizens was that “no more offshore facilities would be created anywhere near the county. This was an onshore facility.” This way, the oil companies could just deliver the oil to the shore for processing, rather than do the dirty work on an expensive tanker.

We said no more collaboration with Big Oil. It was time to move toward renewables.

We had passion, law, and logic on our side. Everything but enough votes. We lost 3 to 2.

The Las Flores plant was built in 1982, eventually carrying processed crude in a pipeline from the canyon to the Gaviota pump station, and then onward throughout the state from Los Angeles to San Francisco.

That pipeline ruptured last Tuesday, releasing more than 100,000 gallons of oil onto nine miles of the Santa Barbara seacoast.

The beaches have far more “natural seepage” than they did before Big Oil came to town because of the now-pressurized ocean floor. Taking a swim has meant having to install cleaning stations throughout the county. Now, for the second time in less than fifty years, Santa Barbara beaches are a place for death and destruction to what was the healthiest coastal ecosystem in southern California.

A pelican covered in oil flies over the oil slick along the coast of Refugio State Beach. (photo: Lucy Nicholson/Reuters)

The 2015 Santa Barbara spill is a highly visible manifestation of the nation’s continuing dependence on fossil fuels that has to be ended as quickly as possible.

Professor Mark Jacobson at Stanford and the Solutions Project offer a sensible way out. A trip to their website or YouTube reveals 50 plans for the 50 states to transition to renewable energy for all activities by 2050.

Although he has a Ph.D. in atmospheric engineering and a variety of other degrees (including economics) Dr. Jacobson is hardly an obscure academic – if you're nostalgic for David Letterman, you can see his recent interview with Jacobson. His plans are comprehensive, calling for 100% water, wind, and solar (WWS) for all purposes (electricity, transportation, heating/cooling, industry). The plan contemplates all new energy from WWS by 2020, 80=85% of existing energy by 2030, and 100% by 2050.

Jacobson and others have an extremely detailed roadmap for California, estimating that total conversion to WWS will save the astounding amount of $103 billion in reduced health care costs in California in one year.

Jacobson emphasizes how the reduction in air pollution deaths and the reduction in global climate cost benefits will allow these programs to pay for themselves within a few years. As he told Letterman, “It’s not a technological or economic problem, it’s a social and political problem.”

How do we generate the social and political will? There are many ways, but we can’t wait for the next thirty to forty years and expect change to come to us.

One promising route is the “Flood the System” campaign planned for this autumn by Rising Tide North America, leading up to the “Paris 2015” UN climate summit during early December. In Paris, the hope is to get a deal to halt a more than 2-degree centigrade rise in the earth’s climate. Rising Tide believes that a massive direct action campaign will raise the stakes in Paris, while aiming high for more profound social changes in the coming years.

In a dawning era of citizen engagement, Rising Tide’s call to action is a logical path to pursue. The alternative is more Santa Barbara-sized spills, a dystopian climate, and the collapse of the essential engine of hope.

This aerial view shows the extent of the damage. (photo: Lucy Nicholson/Reuters)

100% renewable California, Transition to 100% wind, water, and solar (WWS) for all purposes (electricity, transportation, heating/cooling, industry.)

"Bill Simpich is an Oakland attorney who knows that it doesn't have to be like this. He was part of the legal team chosen by Public Justice as Trial Lawyer of the Year in 2003 for winning a jury verdict of 4.4 million in Judi Bari's lawsuit against the FBI and the Oakland police."

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.