Hi all, I hope you’ll read my latest column for the L.A. Times and let me know what you think. Here’s how it starts:
>*“I want you to stop changing your lives, OK? We’ve been conditioned to think that change is good and exciting, but what if it’s not? What if it’s actually bad and very, very dangerous?”*
>*So says the Janitor, played by Neil Flynn, in one of the final episodes of my favorite TV show, “Scrubs.” It’s a silly-but-serious line that left a deep impression on me when I was a 16-year-old living a happy, healthy, fulfilling life, already averse to change.*
>*Even today — as I spend many of my waking hours reporting on the deadly heat waves, wildfires and floods of the climate crisis — the idea of keeping things exactly as they are has a certain appeal. The Janitor’s words continue to resonate with me.*
>*Yet as I’ve traversed the American West over the last two years with my L.A. Times colleagues, exploring how the transition from fossil fuels to cleaner energy is reshaping sensitive ecosystems and rural communities, one lesson has risen above the rest: If we don’t embrace change now, while we still have a choice, far worse changes will eviscerate us later.*
>*That lesson crystallized for me over the last few months, as I wrote about a Montana coal town struggling to accept that its West Coast customer base no longer wants coal power — you can read my full story here — and as I struggled personally to figure out what kinds of stories I want to tell going forward, after a decade of reporting on challenges facing the energy transition.*
>*Let’s start with Colstrip, a city of 2,000 people in southeastern Montana.*
>*I spent a few days there in December, and I’ve got nothing but sympathy for residents. Coal is their everything. A mine and major power plant — plus a smaller power plant — collectively employ about 600 people. If I lived there, I’d probably be fighting to keep the coal industry alive, for myself and my friends and neighbors. I might even question climate science.*
>*“Change begets change begets change,” warned the Janitor.*
>*Folks in Colstrip and similar towns are justifiably worried that if big cities replace fossil fuels with renewable energy, their lives will change for the worse. They’re not totally opposed to wind and solar, but they’re skeptical those technologies will ever fully replace fossil fuels, in terms of the bountiful jobs, tax revenues and other economic benefits that coal, oil and gas have provided.*
>*I saw a related phenomenon at work in California’s Imperial Valley, one of the West’s most productive agricultural regions.*
>*Some farmers don’t think their neighboring growers should be allowed to replace fields of cattle feed and vegetables with solar panels, even though farm-to-solar conversions can save drought-depleted Colorado River water and slow global warming. Why are those farmers upset? Because they see industrial solar projects as a threat to their longstanding agricultural way of life.*
>*Variations of the same aversion to change are at work in Nevada, where conservationists are working to block solar projects that would destroy desert wildlife habitat they’ve dedicated their lives to safeguarding. And in Wyoming, where some lawmakers have spent nearly 15 years trying to slow wind energy development. And in Idaho, where ditching fossil fuels almost certainly won’t be possible without hydropower dams — a frustrating reality for environmental activists committed to tearing down dams.*
>*Please understand that I’m sympathetic to all of those concerns. That’s why I’ve spent the last decade reporting on them. As I’ve written previously, there’s no such thing as a perfect climate change solution. Even climate-friendly energy has its warts.*
>*The problem is that dramatic changes are coming whether we want them or not. In fact, they’re already here.*
Again, I hope you’ll read the whole column and let me know what you think. If you’re interested, you can sign up to get my Boiling Point newsletters in your inbox twice a week here: [latimes.com/boilingpoint](http://latimes.com/boilingpoint)
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Hi all, I hope you’ll read my latest column for the L.A. Times and let me know what you think. Here’s how it starts:
>*“I want you to stop changing your lives, OK? We’ve been conditioned to think that change is good and exciting, but what if it’s not? What if it’s actually bad and very, very dangerous?”*
>*So says the Janitor, played by Neil Flynn, in one of the final episodes of my favorite TV show, “Scrubs.” It’s a silly-but-serious line that left a deep impression on me when I was a 16-year-old living a happy, healthy, fulfilling life, already averse to change.*
>*Even today — as I spend many of my waking hours reporting on the deadly heat waves, wildfires and floods of the climate crisis — the idea of keeping things exactly as they are has a certain appeal. The Janitor’s words continue to resonate with me.*
>*Yet as I’ve traversed the American West over the last two years with my L.A. Times colleagues, exploring how the transition from fossil fuels to cleaner energy is reshaping sensitive ecosystems and rural communities, one lesson has risen above the rest: If we don’t embrace change now, while we still have a choice, far worse changes will eviscerate us later.*
>*That lesson crystallized for me over the last few months, as I wrote about a Montana coal town struggling to accept that its West Coast customer base no longer wants coal power — you can read my full story here — and as I struggled personally to figure out what kinds of stories I want to tell going forward, after a decade of reporting on challenges facing the energy transition.*
>*Let’s start with Colstrip, a city of 2,000 people in southeastern Montana.*
>*I spent a few days there in December, and I’ve got nothing but sympathy for residents. Coal is their everything. A mine and major power plant — plus a smaller power plant — collectively employ about 600 people. If I lived there, I’d probably be fighting to keep the coal industry alive, for myself and my friends and neighbors. I might even question climate science.*
>*“Change begets change begets change,” warned the Janitor.*
>*Folks in Colstrip and similar towns are justifiably worried that if big cities replace fossil fuels with renewable energy, their lives will change for the worse. They’re not totally opposed to wind and solar, but they’re skeptical those technologies will ever fully replace fossil fuels, in terms of the bountiful jobs, tax revenues and other economic benefits that coal, oil and gas have provided.*
>*I saw a related phenomenon at work in California’s Imperial Valley, one of the West’s most productive agricultural regions.*
>*Some farmers don’t think their neighboring growers should be allowed to replace fields of cattle feed and vegetables with solar panels, even though farm-to-solar conversions can save drought-depleted Colorado River water and slow global warming. Why are those farmers upset? Because they see industrial solar projects as a threat to their longstanding agricultural way of life.*
>*Variations of the same aversion to change are at work in Nevada, where conservationists are working to block solar projects that would destroy desert wildlife habitat they’ve dedicated their lives to safeguarding. And in Wyoming, where some lawmakers have spent nearly 15 years trying to slow wind energy development. And in Idaho, where ditching fossil fuels almost certainly won’t be possible without hydropower dams — a frustrating reality for environmental activists committed to tearing down dams.*
>*Please understand that I’m sympathetic to all of those concerns. That’s why I’ve spent the last decade reporting on them. As I’ve written previously, there’s no such thing as a perfect climate change solution. Even climate-friendly energy has its warts.*
>*The problem is that dramatic changes are coming whether we want them or not. In fact, they’re already here.*
Again, I hope you’ll read the whole column and let me know what you think. If you’re interested, you can sign up to get my Boiling Point newsletters in your inbox twice a week here: [latimes.com/boilingpoint](http://latimes.com/boilingpoint)