Campaign to Halt New Gas Stations in Mendocino County Kicked Off by The Grassroots Institute
Press release from the Grassroots Institute of Mendocino (GRI):
The Grassroots Institute of Mendocino (GRI) is launching a public campaign to halt the construction of any new gas stations in Mendocino County. The kickoff event for this campaign will take place at its quarterly General Meeting on Sunday, October 22nd in-person at the Caspar Community Center from 12:00-2:00 pm.
GRI is excited to announce that our guest speaker will be Woody Hastings, an environmental activist who was instrumental in successfully pursuing new gas stations bans in Sonoma County. Members of GRI’s Climate Crisis Workgroup and Woody will make the case for such a ban, leading a discussion and answering questions.
Woody Hastings is the co-coordinator of the all-volunteer Coalition Opposing New Gas Stations, or CONGAS. Founded in 2019, CONGAS is a community-based organization with a simple mission: stop the construction of new gasoline stations. Since 2019, CONGAS has played a role in stopping at least three gas station proposals and has led the effort to enact local ordinances prohibiting new gas stations throughout Sonoma County and beyond.
Woody is an energy and environmental policy analyst, strategic planner, and community organizer with over thirty-five years of experience in the non-profit, governmental, and private sectors. In his professional capacity, Woody serves as the Phase Out Polluting Fuels Program Manager for The Climate Center, a statewide climate and energy policy non-profit organization founded in Sonoma County in 2001. Woody earned his bachelor’s degree in Environmental Studies with an emphasis on sustainability and social justice from San Francisco State University. He is also a Fellow of the Sonoma County-based Leadership Institute for Just and Resilient Communities.
Please find the event flyer and open letter attached.
For more information, please contact Don Hess at MendocinoNewGasBan@gmail.com
Join the discussion! For rules visit: https://kymkemp.com/commenting-rules
Comments system how-to: https://wpdiscuz.com/community/postid/10599/
NIMBY at it’s finest.
How will they get to their meetings?
Open a cobalt mine in Healdsburg fill it with CONGAlese child slaves- for the future!
Hey,hey,hey no mining here in the USA , that wouldn’t be very green of us. When it comes to carbon footprint, ours is the only one that matters, because we USED to have the biggest economy, crack me up.
The Dem plan is to reduce the amount of cars, drivers, and miles driven.
There is no way they plan to do the vast amount of mining necessary to support an all electric economy.
Dem plan is to drastically reduce our standard of living. Rural areas will be affected 1st.
Brainwashed. The only plan is for the rich to get richer. They do this by getting an ever larger slice of the pie. It has absolutely nothing to do with party affiliation.
Brainwashed?
While I agree that few if any politicians are prioritizing the common man, it is quite obvious that one party is waging war on fossil fuel and we all know which party that is.
Awesome, limit stations and create a monopoly situation, so the poor people who can’t afford evs get hammered by the few stations they can fill up their old beater ride to get to work. Perfect instance where the rich can’t imagine how the poor live.
These little towns need more gas stations, so there is a little competition. I can’t believe I’m agreeing with you on something.
In time you will learn that all of us are humans except for the communists like Woody here
Do not build gas stations are an good ideas. all future intrastucture projects should be EV charging stations. Weather you like it or not that is the future. Gas is out, electric is in. We have too change for are childrens’ future.
“…Gas is out…”???
Then why is US Oil production setting new all time records, Alf34…???
https://apnews.com/article/oil-fossil-fuels-climate-change-biden-df27160fc81f28d21fbf1fc5575b77bc
“United States domestic oil production hit an all-time high last week, contrasting with efforts to slice heat-trapping carbon emissions by the Biden administration and world leaders.”
_________________________
I guess just because Biden won’t let us burn our own oil, doesn’t mean Biden isn’t going to let his foreign cronies burn more of it than ever before.
How is that supposed to stop climate change?
Biden is just a corrupt fraud.
Unfortunately, they are most ALL a corrupt fraud.
Money is the corruption and they all answer to it.
Money is like rust, always active… every night and day.
—
More or less ‘Honest’ Senators ? Maybe 5 to 10 ?
More or less ‘Honest’ Representatives ? Maybe 50 to 100 ?
Whether you like it or not, not everyone wants nor can they afford ev vehicles. We have gas powered generators for when your precious electricity goes out and because there is no where to plug in my electric chainsaw and not a long life battery powered chainsaw we will continue to use gas powered everything including out car and pickup.
EV has a long way to go before I will participate. The local utility companies can’t even keep power on now. A flood of EVs would not be able to charge so what good are they? Oh yeah, we plan to destroy the oceans with off shore electricity farms, but that’s OK because it will be far enough away to be out of site out of mind. There’s no such thing as green energy. All energy requires the destruction of something else. That’s fact. So it’s time for these idiot liars to quit their propaganda. That’s all they have. They have no truth whatsoever.
True, there is no form of energy that is 100% green. We should be investing in green hydrogen and more mass transit. Collectively, we are so far in debt thanks to both parties. Always money for war, somehow.
Mass transit only works in urban areas with huge government subsidies… Even in Asia…
Public transit could work just fine here.
We could shift the subsidies we already give fossil fuel to something that benefits everyone and that would give us a fighting chance to have a future.
What subsidies would those be?
About $20 billion per year in the US. https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-fossil-fuel-subsidies-a-closer-look-at-tax-breaks-and-societal-costs
Much, much more when you consider the health costs, the environmental costs, the knock-on effects of environmental damage and the fact that mucho f our military budget is used to secure our supply of fossil fuels.
Define “here”…
Because, public transit definitely wouldn’t work “here”.
School buses barely work “here”…
You have to drive to drop off and pick up your kids…?♂️
Gas is never out. Just completed a 6100 mile road trip using two lane blacktop Eureka to Knoxville and back. If we’d used an ev we’d still be stuck in the middle of nowhere. No ev’s in Nebraska or Iowa or Eastern Oregon…..no tesla or charging stations. We did see mile after mile of coal trains taking coal to various large power plants so morons in California can charge their golf carts. Electric vehicles are not mature technology and you will find yourself stuck if you buy one. Political dreams not withstanding.
Did you make it over to Gatlinburg, Smokey Mountain national park?
Maybe take a little hike on the Appalachian Trail?
Beautiful country over there.
It is beautiful but too many people.
Also petroleum production will continue to increase because nitrogen fertilizer comes from oil and gas. Can’t make with solar or wind…..needs gas and oil or the planet will starve. Modern industrial food production needs more and more fertilizer to feed the increasing numbers of humans on the planet. “Organic” can’t even come close. So you can drive around in your ev with your organic lettuce and watch the world starve.
The answer isn’t EVs , that’s just sidestepping the solution. Less people is the answer, suck it up buttercup. Face climate change head on with a real solution .
Less people is the answer. No one addresses it. Ev’s are just band aids. Need to get about 7 billion people off the planet.
Have you started a list?
I think Zipline and the Lone Ranger should put their money where their mouths are and set the example. “Less people”, you demand? Okay. You first.
And since we’re all being knotzees today, it’s “Fewer” not “Less”.
I did my part, I encouraged my kids not to have kids. I would hope you’d do the same. Otherwise you’d be selfish.
I finally get to say that I agree with you.
Until next time.
That’s the saddest sentiment I’ve heard in a long time. No wonder you’re so grouchy.
That line of thinking has never produrf positive results.
Also, we are already nearing peak human population and are on the verge of serious population collapse that will seriously stress modern civilization
I say we start with the old people
More than half the population of Gaza is under 18 – 35 is old.
Well then, we just best get used to being Palestinian because they will be replacing us.
What do you do when the power goes out? How do you charge your vehicle then?
Instead of banning something without providing the alternative, why not build more charging stations first?
Nobody’s banning gas stations.
Read the article.
Then why did biden just spend a bunch of money on hydrogen stations, saying it’s the future.
Cart before the horse as usual by the government. EV’s are not the answer either. “Free energy” will be disclosed very soon, people already making vehicles that run with water. Once the corrupt entities in the few corporations controlling the world’s economy are brought down, we the people will be able to freely create and clean up our Earth.
Yes, earth and a/ether provide all the free energy we could ever need. What is in short supply are free thinkers. Can’t capitalize off free.
If you are an idiot this probably seems like a great idea to you.
The electricity used to charge EVs largely comes from burning fossil fuels. The mining of materials for EV batteries is an environmental and social nightmare. If you drive an EV you are supporting exploitative labor practices (including slavery) and the burning of coal. Enjoy your so-called green transportation.
This ??
Not to mention the cost both financially and environmentally for changing millions/billions of toxic batteries when they are done or damaged, just the carbon offset to mine build haul and assemble the components for an ev make them a complete joke as a “green” vehicle.
As the world is going electric we dont need any more gas stations. The EVs will be powered mostly by natural gas, wind & solar. In our remote little paradise we dont see
as much EV activity as the big metro areas but just out of curiosity I went to the USDOE website & they report in my little town of Crescent City we have 9 different locations around our town to recharge your EV. 9. In CC. WOW. Not only does every car maker now offer at least 1 EV model, even Peterbilt, Freightliner, IH, Damlier, Nikola, Mack and Tesla offer EV trucks but Caterpillar & John Deer too has all electric heavy equipment. The experts predict in 5 years you will have to search far & wide to find a new petro car to buy.
Its a brave new world. I think anyone who is considering building a gas station has not thought this all the way through.
!
I don’t think you’ve thought this all through either. 1. EV is pretty unaffordable for folks in these northern counties. 2. Lack of infrastructure (like old apartment complexes) aren’t going to be able to retrofit. 2. Gotta get those minerals from somewhere. 4. Fossil fuels are being used for generating that electricity to charge. 5. When the electricity gets shut off for fires or other weather conditions then what? 6. Just because there is an electric vehicle charger doesn’t mean it’s always functional, you might get stranded in the middle of nowhere even though you “planned ahead”. 7. Time how long you might have to wait to charge that vehicle.
The first flat screen TVs cost 15,000.00, in 1997. It was 3″ thick and had a 42″ screen. Currently you can get a Samsung 42″ “smart tv” for under 300.00. That’s 25 years later.
Not saying some of your other concerns aren’t valid (for now).
The difference is that no one was forcing you to buy a a $15,000 TV. As technology and manufacturing progressed, the price came down, and when the market deemed flat screen TVs to be a viable alternative they replaced CRT TVs. That is a very very different scenario than the state forcing an over priced unsupported impractical technology on a society that doesn’t want it…
Does “society” not want EVs, or just a certain subset of “society”?
That is a good question. I think there a tiny subset of society that wants to, and is, buying EV’s. I suspect there is a considerable portion of society (myself included) who would be interested in having an EV if it were affordable, would last for 30+ years, and have a range of at least 400 miles. And then of course there are people who simply don’t want anything to do with them no matter what, but I would guess that is a relatively small proportion of society.
People are very good at figuring out what is in their best interest, and currently they have figured out that EVs are impractical and unaffordable. When that changes, and it likely will change, people will figure it out. But again, the state trying to force people into bad decisions is not a good idea. The world has a long history of governments trying to social engineer populations, and they inevitably find a way around it. Just wait for the technology to catch up and let the free market do its thing…
Don’t be so naive.
If you takeaway tax credits and rebates EV’s make no economic sense.
If you take away subsidies and other forms of government support, fossil fuels make no economic sense.
You don’t even have a job, do you Jebs?
I can only imagine the uproar that would come from a certain segment of this comment section if I were to tell you what it was.
Aren’t both you and Brian preachers?
Try to buy a new 40″ CRT TV today. 😐
Change always sucks but it is crystal clear we (humans) have drastically harmed our planet and every species on it.
We are only making the first silly baby steps. There are some new technologies that will bring us to our first toddler steps.
The big money is in building the new technology to store energy.
When the price comes down If ever (remember car prices just continue to go up, and to repair these EV vehicles is costly due to how they are manufactured check out Rivian), the infrastructure needs to be in place, what about taxing the grid with all those vehicles being charged? Also, I forgot number 8. When EV’s crash especially Teslas it takes thousands of gallons of water and hours to put out. Not a great use of our precious water resources or first responders time.
Wow 9! How many people live in CC again?
New semi truck in EV form, 600k , bust out your wallet shoppers. Freight going to the moon, gonna make this inflation look tiny. Free shipping is a thing of the past, freight gonna cost more than the product. Shop wisely or go broke.
So you want to charge your car on the power grid? PG&E? I for one do not want to sit on top of these batts while driving. There will be alternatives to manufacturing lithium, the sooner the better. It’s a nasty process. I wonder too, who actually owns these EV companies. That is a deep rabbit hole. I have read and listened to many EV owners left stranded, or had their cars catch fire after becoming wet from flooding. These fires are super hard to extinguish. And yes, i know gasoline can blow up. I am also awaiting comments from the heavy equipment operators out there who actually have used these machines, as in does the charge last a whole day, power enough to work, or are there even any machines out there? I keep hearing horror stories about the recycling aspect of the alternative energy products. Forcing the country and the world to go green is very premature, especially when the products we use everyday aren’t there, and are expensive if they are available. Who is behind this? A very small group of people who have been calling all the shots for mankind for a very long time, getting wealthier by the moment. All of the worlds’ governments are infiltrated with these criminals. Seems some are being brought down, we need to get rid of them all. They do not care about us or the Earth, and stand in our way for cleaning up and taking care of our habitat. Wake up people.
Morons!
The whining on this comment section is astonishing.
no, the typical disconnect from reality and the typical resort to straw man trolling is astonishing.
They are not whining, you just don’t understand reality (as usual).
Could you tell us what you do for a living and what experience you have?
You seem remarkably naive.
Neither your nor pf’s comment make any sense. Can you clarify what you’re trying to say?
Fossil fuels?. People still belive oil comes from dinosaurs?
I think the term fossil fuel actually refers more to the fact that it’s been in the ground forever and it’s old rather than dinosaur juice
How many new gas stations will satisfy your need?
Leftists steadily force marching society back to the stone age…
A bit of an over exaggeration. But still better than marching us off a cliff.
What cliff? Lets not objectively move backwards for subjective belief’s.
The cliff that is anthropogenic climate change, ecosytem collapse, and the current mass extinction event.
I’m also not sure that shifting to new technologies really fits the definition of moving backwards.
The massive destructive land use choices like open pit mining to get battery components are the source of anthropogenic climate change.
We don’t need to stop using petroleum, we need to stop destroying forests, grasslands, and wetlands and work to restore those we’ve decimated if we want to reverse the damage we’ve done.
Thoughtful land use, from urban planning to agricultural systems,is where we should be focusing our energy. Not on forcing a societal shift to a technology that is not ready to carry the load while financializing nature so that the vultures that have long profited off the destruction of the planet can continue to do so while pretending to “save” us.
If you think banning new gas stations helps the “shift to new technologies”, then we deserve the most expenses gas in the nation
Logically, if there was ever enough electricity to supply affordable practical electric vehicles, the number of charging stations would go up and the number of gas stations would go down. That’s how a free market works. However, at this time there is a shortage of electricity, and electric cars are expensive and impractical. Therefore, radical political extremists forcing the market in the wrong direction will create nothing but problems. But perhaps that is the objective…
Wow. They call themselves the Grassroots Institute and they waste their energy on this authoritarian bullshit?! Hey- if gas stations won’t make money in the future because they are obsolete then people will not build them. It’s called capitalism. Maybe you prefer some fascistic form of socialism? I though with that name you’d be working on food security, food production co-ops, building low income housing for the poor, fire protection programs…y’know- stuff that is really grass roots! Not busy work for wealthy wanna-be social directors forcing everybody to do stuff their way….because you must be smarter than everybody because you have the wealth lol mostly inherited LOL…
The Grassroots Institute should be focusing on cleaning up all the illegal grassroots weed grow residue scattered throughout every single watershed in Mendo County. Even watersheds inundated by fog almost year round where the low IQ humans were trying to grow. It’s everywhere. Left to rot, slowly releasing oil into all of the watersheds for the next thousand years. Probably 10 billion feet of black plastic poly pipe alone not to mention multi layered plastic sheet dams in small creeks, plastic soil and fertilizer bags, plastic pots and trays, plastic tents snd tarps, food containers, etc. Because they never get off the pavement, they never see it, so to them it doesn’t exist and it doesn’t matter anyway. To small of an issue to them, as they need a headline grabbing “We are all going to die by 2030 unless……..” What a joke.
As far as their far fetched and debunked idea of Man caused climate change (per thousands of geophysicists, climate scientists, geologists, astronomers, and engineers who do no rely on grants and who state the scam is a fraud), they have no idea what they are talking about. They are just Democrat Party operatives using the sleight of hand Political Science angle for their Gollum Ring grabber fantasies of ruling the world. Keep your Patty Hearst/Maharishi/Peoples Temple cult bull crap away from those who have seen it, know better, and understand SCIENCE.
Liberal carpet-bagging at its finest, please go back to SF and leave us alone in Mendo… Laytonville community is now a one-station town and we all pay for it everyday.
Whack jobs
Southern Oregon counties give a middle finger to the climate cults offshore windmill industrial complex. Good old Oregon, the state who trusts the government the least out of all of them. Good for them. Let’s join them in keeping our oceans free from power hungry cults determining our Pacific Oceans future. Save the Cetaceans!
“Turbine, it’s called a Turbine!
Aren’t they giant fans that are going to blow cooling winds on the heating landscape?
Reading the comments it is clear that many of y’all have been paying zero attention to reality. The focus is skewed in favor of the bullshit spewed by “conservatives” (who have no clue about the irony of THAT brand). We are doomed to an overheated planet because none of you can conceive of a world without hotrods. EV and hydrogen powered vehicles ARE coming, the world IS changing.
LEAD, FOLLOW OR GET OUT OF THE FUCKING WAY
Lol!
When EVs are worth buying, people will want to buy them.
Pssst…
Electric vehicles were kicked to the curb 125 years ago due to their inefficiency, limited payload and because of the efficiency and convenience of the internal combustion engine. Elon Musk was able to make a planetary fortune because of the “feelings” of The Divider in Chief, his administration and the people who voted for him. Guess what? Nothing has changed in 125 years. I could drive a 1965 VW bug from San Francisco to New York and back before Teslas fastest sedan could GET to New York.
Musk saw a bunch of fools who wanted to throw him money and ran with it. Then he completely clowned liberals once he achieved his goal annd bought Twitter. All those liberals buying his cars at ridiculous prices… isn’t it interesting that the UAW isn’t striking against Tesla? Oh… wait… his workforce isn’t organized.
Why were the liberals buying cars from a company that is vehemently non-union?
methinks the soapbox “WE ARE DOOMED TO HEAT DEATH” peoples might not be the sane peoples either
So even if you have a hybrid, if they shut off the electricity, you’ll have to drive around more to fuel your car.
Great, now people will have to drive farther to get their fuel.?
Why?
I really get the feeling that people are commenting without reading the article first.
Why read when you can “own the libs?”
Let me splain it for you. First block the construction of new fuel stations then regulate the existing one into non-existents. Sound familiar?
When communism and environmentalism merge
I really think that this guy trying to stop more gasoline stations in Sonoma County is full of bean gas. He has no concept about how many large charging stations will be required all across the US. The money to build these stations would be in the billions of dollars. There are not enough EV to even begin to support more than just a few. Perhaps he should be pushing pedal power bicycles instead!
October 13, 2023
Bill Gates Stuns Audience by Denying There’s a ‘Climate Crisis’
“There’s a lot of climate exaggeration,” said Gates at a recent event. “The climate is not the end of the planet. So the planet is going to be fine.”
Gates made the remark at the Earthshot Prize Innovation Summit, which was also attended by billionaire Michael Bloomberg and British Prince William.
A few days later, at a New York Times event, he made a similarly climate-related remark. As Gates put it, “there are effects on humanity, the planet less so,” and “no temperate country is going to become uninhabitable.”
Gates added at the NY Times event that if world leaders are going to implement climate polices, it cannot be achieved by using “brute force.”“If you try to do climate brute force, you will get people who say, ‘I like climate but I don’t want to bear that cost and reduce my standard of living,’” Gates remarked. “Without innovation, it’s unlikely, particularly in middle-income countries, that the brute force approach will be successful.”
He did not provide specifics, but he did call for increased support from both political parties for legislation addressing climate change.
https://trendingpoliticsnews.com/bill-gates-stuns-audience-by-denying-theres-a-climate-crisis-knab/
more ….
“You can’t have a climate policy that when one party is in charge goes full speed ahead and stops cold,” he said. “These are 30-year investments in steel factories.”
“It’s pretty clear we’re not going to go to extreme scenarios,” he added. “Emissions will peak and then start to go down. They won’t go down as fast as we want them to and so the temperature will continue to rise and once the temperature has risen it doesn’t go down very quickly, unless you do massive carbon removal.”
Furthermore, Mr. Gates claimed in the NY Times event that he is “the person who’s doing the most on climate in terms of the innovation and in how we can square multiple goals,” implying that he is an authority on climate change issues because of the money he has donated to the cause.
Among Mr. Gates’s previous climate-related warnings was a prediction that by 2020, climate change would be responsible for more human deaths and suffering than the current COVID-19 pandemic. At the time, he remarked that “as awful as this pandemic is, climate change could be worse,” adding that international leaders must “accelerate our efforts now” to “avoid a climate disaster.”
Mr. Gates is also the largest private owner of farmland in the United States, having amassed a vast portfolio of agricultural property over the past few years. Mr. Gates has said that conventional farming methods have a negative impact on the environment, and he has advocated for the use of synthetic or plant-based meat as a solution to this problem.
The Nobel Laureate in Physics, John Clauser, has recently cast doubt on the accuracy of climate models by claiming that scientists have neglected a crucial factor. Nearly 1,600 scientists, including him, signed a pledge denying the existence of a “climate emergency” and noting that evidence from Earth’s past demonstrates that the climate has always been shifting, with or without human influence.
https://trendingpoliticsnews.com/bill-gates-stuns-audience-by-denying-theres-a-climate-crisis-knab/
I used the bold for emphasis. Mr. Gates believes his money rules.
Interesting read. HC, thank you for sharing. Guess I have to admit that there is climate change now because the earth’s climate has always been changing and always will change. But at least I have confirmation that there is no climate emergency (which is what I’ve been espousing for years).
“It’s just weather…” President Donald J Trump
Speaking of weather, a couple of small jolts woke me up this morning and I made coffee and sat on the deck. Warm and breezy this morning. Earthquake weather.