And yet California remains unassailably Democratic. I know there’s currently a recall petition against Democratic governor Newsom, but the last time I looked most analysts gave it little chance of succeeding. The author also notes that the state’s highest court is basically packed with progressive judges so legal challenges to the Democrats’ policies face an uphill battle.
If people keep voting for politicians who support this stuff (or if voters simply ignore the political process) nothing will change. And maybe that’s the answer. The state has to fall over the economic precipice before change can occur.
Lesley van Reenen
2 years ago
In some ways the odious Newsom is the best answer to enforce policy change. The more damage he does, the more likely it is that he will be voted out… or not.
In South Africa the majority keep on voting in the ANC who have been devastating for the young democracy. It doesn’t seem to matter that there is an epic failure in governance and that every day (yes every day), more and more corruption is exposed. It seems many more than 25 years are required for the message to sink in.
So all that the Dems have to do is to continue letting in more and more migrants (voters) who will take a substantial amount of time to cotton on to the game.
In the meantime, those with real skills leave those areas for greener pastures. The problem with Democrat voters is that many of them are credentialed, yet gullible midwits. In their arrogance they believe their watered-down education makes them smarter than those who think different to them.
As a college educator, I have always impressed upon my students that if they believe a college degree makes them superior to those without, then their education has gravely failed them.
Francis MacGabhann
2 years ago
A long and boring statement of the obvious which can be said in three words — utopianism doesn’t work.
Utopia, was a satirical work describing the impossibility of its own existence. The words itself is derived from Greek and means ‘no place’, a place that cannot exist.
“California residents lack sufficient income to meet basic costs of living, even after accounting for public assistance programmes. Those struggling families include half of Latino and 40% of black residents.There are two main factors driving this “new Green Jim Crow era”.”
So half Latinos cannot make it by working – yet Biden opens the border? That is what I take from this story. Forget about energy costs – the ones who make a living can afford it – why are these unable to as well? That is what policy needs looking at.
If Trump does not get back in 2024 the nation is lost.
With respect, isn’t the egregious element here the huge disparity between what salves the wealthy tech bro’s conscience with their left wing virtue signaling because of their overwhelming energy consumption vs. the poorer Californian’s energy poverty?
I say this as a Brit, so can only go on what I read.
We do have similar (or worse) climate policies in this country that our politicians openly admit will make everyone poorer (at least in the 10 – 15 year timescale), and will disproportionately be born by the less well off.
Last edited 2 years ago by Philip Stott
Ludwig van Earwig
2 years ago
Why mar your article with a sensationalist title, and by buying into the Critical Race Theory/”systemic racism” narrative? The same policies that are apparently driving out poor blacks and Latinos will also make California unaffordable for poor whites. These developments have nothing to do with the Jim Crow era segregation laws, which were all about skin pigmentation.
Yes! Green, as in greenback dollar, is the true neutral.
Peter LR
2 years ago
I don’t imagine they will be investing in nuclear energy production then which they could afford and which would provide “energy equity”!
Warren T
2 years ago
A great way to solve the problem would be to build low income housing in the deserts of Nevada so all the undesirables can be moved out there. This way, the Nancy’s and Gavin’s would not have to be exposed to a gas guzzling, common man auto at the red light on Wilshire Blvd.
This strategy would also eliminate any potential opposition in the next election. Then they could all bask in a sinfully delightful orgy of woke progressivism.
Seems emojis don’t render – it was a “thumb’s up”.
Last edited 2 years ago by Philip Stott
David D'Andrea
2 years ago
I wouldn’t call the Breakthrough Institute “environmentalist” – they are funded by billionaires (the Pritzkers), and their board is stuffed with financiers, biotech and corporate consultants. Rather than Shellenberger’s “universal prosperity” we should look to E. F. Schumacher, who reminded us that the problem of overconsumption is at root a compensation for nihilism.
Philip Stott
2 years ago
Could the answer to this be a policy whereby every citizen gets a certain amount of annual energy credits (roughly equal to the affordability of local earnings) and any usage over that is subjected to sharply increasing tax?
Kirsten Walstedt
2 years ago
I have always been an environmental moderate, and I will always rank adequate housing resources above energy saving, especially in California. But at the risk of sounding like a monocle-adjusting Tech oligarch, I think you would persuade more people if you conceded even a tiny point of the environmental issue. How about build tons of housing in as green a way as we can without raising costs exorbitantly? Isn’t NIMBYism a bigger threat to planned housing than “the Greens”? How about allowing local energy production and consumption with a plan to gradually replace a reasonable percentage of it with clean energy, as clean energy gets cheaper? Does it really have to be all-or-none? Investing in better public transportation and light rail would also make it easier for people who can’t afford to live in city centers to commute to work in an environmentally friendly (and mentally healthier) way. I also think the word ‘pogrom’ is out of place here, especially when the target is energy companies.
When we find a clean energy source, we’ll get back to you.
Roger Inkpen
2 years ago
When did tenants become ‘renters’? ugly word!
Unaffordable, insufficient housing, loss of manufacturing, increasing inequality, escalating fuel prices, phasing out of fossil fuel cars, etc, etc….
Welcome to the UK’s world California!
E. L. Herndon
1 year ago
As a 4th generation Californian, I agree with this assessment. “Green Jim Crow” functions as a regressive penalty, first on the poor and then on the struggling middle class, no matter the ethnic identity. Very few who live here fail to be deeply impressed by nature’s beauty, but stewardship is one thing, and a ruthless levelling on the basis of shaky science, is quite another. Sure it’s nice to imagine carbon-free energy — but at this point in time, as they say, “you can’t get there from here”. Modest, careful scaffolding has to be done. If we change horses in mid-stream, we’re liable to learn that the stream we are up is Crap Creek, and us without a paddle.
Helen E
2 years ago
Came across the Breakthrough Institute report from another site, tried sincerely to read the whole tendentious, dreadful thing line-by-line. Apologies to the author for any missed content. But:
Its author appears to blame minorities’ economic hardship on California’s “racist climate housing policies” and California’s “racist climate transportation policies,” without mentioning the drastic demographic change that Calif. experienced over the last four decades since 1980: the replacement of blacks and low-income workers of all races by waves of immigration, mostly by Hispanics/Latinos (both legal but mostly undocumented), in the state’s workforce and in housing. This change is well documented (see 2017 UCLA report published in conjunction with Los Angeles Black Workers Center):
“Construction has offered a lot of new jobs to Angelenos over the last several decades, but those positions don’t seem to be going to black workers. There were 7,012 black workers in construction in 2014, 2,000 fewer than there were in 1980, according to census data analyzed by UCLA.
“That 23% drop compares with an overall increase of 120,840 construction workers of all races during those 34 years, or 80%.
“Those new jobs aren’t going to white workers, either. There were nearly 40,000 fewer white construction workers in Los Angeles in 2014 compared with 1980, a decline of about 40%.
“Latinos, however, have significantly upped their representation. There were more than 185,000 Latino construction workers in Los Angeles in 2014, five times as many as in 1980. (Emphasis mine.)
In addition to demographic changes: Manufacturing has been lost in every state since the 1980s, not just California. High-tech industries have moved into the Bay Area—for good or ill—forcing workers out to more affordable exurbs.
To ignore these seismic changes, and place all the blame on a handful of climate-change initiatives (a “green” Jim Crow, for god sake) shows the author’s utter lack of sincerity
Last edited 2 years ago by Helen E
Helen E
2 years ago
Came across the Breakthrough Institute report from another site, tried sincerely to read the whole tendentious, dreadful thing line-by-line. Apologies to the author for any missed content. But:
Its author appears to blame minorities’ economic hardship on California’s “racist climate housing policies” and California’s “racist climate transportation policies,” without mentioning the drastic demographic change that Calif. experienced over the last four decades since 1980: the replacement of blacks and low-income workers of all races by waves of immigration, mostly by Hispanics/Latinos (both legal but mostly undocumented), in the state’s workforce and in housing. This change is well documented (see 2017 UCLA report published in conjunction with Los Angeles Black Workers Center):
“Construction has offered a lot of new jobs to Angelenos over the last several decades, but those positions don’t seem to be going to black workers. There were 7,012 black workers in construction in 2014, 2,000 fewer than there were in 1980, according to census data analyzed by UCLA.
“That 23% drop compares with an overall increase of 120,840 construction workers of all races during those 34 years, or 80%.
“Those new jobs aren’t going to white workers, either. There were nearly 40,000 fewer white construction workers in Los Angeles in 2014 compared with 1980, a decline of about 40%.
“Latinos, however, have significantly upped their representation. There were more than 185,000 Latino construction workers in Los Angeles in 2014, five times as many as in 1980. (Emphasis mine.)
In addition to demographic changes: Manufacturing has been lost in every state since the 1980s, not just California. High-tech industries have moved into the Bay Area—for good or ill—forcing workers out to more affordable exurbs.
To ignore these seismic changes, and place all the blame on a handful of climate-change initiatives (a “green” Jim Crow, for god sake) shows the author’s utter lack of sincerity
Last edited 2 years ago by Helen E
Rasmus Fogh
2 years ago
Well, well. There are lots of problems in California. Extreme income inequality, racial inequality, poverty, limited space, high cost of living. But it just so hapens that all of them are caused by the climate policy that the author happens to dislike? How very wonderful!
The article very clearly laid out the mechanisms through which the climate policy causes income equality: higher energy prices, lower housing and loss of manufacturing / energy jobs .
So which of these factors do you think
A. Has no linkage to climate policy
B. Has no effect on income inequality
This comment highlights the biggest problem with the West which will bring it down: a mass of “educated” people with inflated ego, cult like beliefs, inability to think or analyse arguments and disproportionate influence in shaping policy.
The very same people who came up with Covid lockdown policies, enabling them to work comfortably from home whilst those who could not do this suffered considerable hardship.
We have them in the UK too and with similar results. It has always struck me as odd that those who most champion ‘the poor’ are the ones whose policies cause them the most harm.
And yet California remains unassailably Democratic. I know there’s currently a recall petition against Democratic governor Newsom, but the last time I looked most analysts gave it little chance of succeeding. The author also notes that the state’s highest court is basically packed with progressive judges so legal challenges to the Democrats’ policies face an uphill battle.
If people keep voting for politicians who support this stuff (or if voters simply ignore the political process) nothing will change. And maybe that’s the answer. The state has to fall over the economic precipice before change can occur.
In some ways the odious Newsom is the best answer to enforce policy change. The more damage he does, the more likely it is that he will be voted out… or not.
In South Africa the majority keep on voting in the ANC who have been devastating for the young democracy. It doesn’t seem to matter that there is an epic failure in governance and that every day (yes every day), more and more corruption is exposed. It seems many more than 25 years are required for the message to sink in.
So all that the Dems have to do is to continue letting in more and more migrants (voters) who will take a substantial amount of time to cotton on to the game.
In the meantime, those with real skills leave those areas for greener pastures. The problem with Democrat voters is that many of them are credentialed, yet gullible midwits. In their arrogance they believe their watered-down education makes them smarter than those who think different to them.
As a college educator, I have always impressed upon my students that if they believe a college degree makes them superior to those without, then their education has gravely failed them.
A long and boring statement of the obvious which can be said in three words — utopianism doesn’t work.
Utopia, was a satirical work describing the impossibility of its own existence. The words itself is derived from Greek and means ‘no place’, a place that cannot exist.
One man’s utopia is another’s hell.
“California residents lack sufficient income to meet basic costs of living, even after accounting for public assistance programmes. Those struggling families include half of Latino and 40% of black residents.There are two main factors driving this “new Green Jim Crow era”.”
So half Latinos cannot make it by working – yet Biden opens the border? That is what I take from this story. Forget about energy costs – the ones who make a living can afford it – why are these unable to as well? That is what policy needs looking at.
If Trump does not get back in 2024 the nation is lost.
With respect, isn’t the egregious element here the huge disparity between what salves the wealthy tech bro’s conscience with their left wing virtue signaling because of their overwhelming energy consumption vs. the poorer Californian’s energy poverty?
I say this as a Brit, so can only go on what I read.
We do have similar (or worse) climate policies in this country that our politicians openly admit will make everyone poorer (at least in the 10 – 15 year timescale), and will disproportionately be born by the less well off.
Why mar your article with a sensationalist title, and by buying into the Critical Race Theory/”systemic racism” narrative? The same policies that are apparently driving out poor blacks and Latinos will also make California unaffordable for poor whites. These developments have nothing to do with the Jim Crow era segregation laws, which were all about skin pigmentation.
Yes! Green, as in greenback dollar, is the true neutral.
I don’t imagine they will be investing in nuclear energy production then which they could afford and which would provide “energy equity”!
A great way to solve the problem would be to build low income housing in the deserts of Nevada so all the undesirables can be moved out there. This way, the Nancy’s and Gavin’s would not have to be exposed to a gas guzzling, common man auto at the red light on Wilshire Blvd.
This strategy would also eliminate any potential opposition in the next election. Then they could all bask in a sinfully delightful orgy of woke progressivism.
Seems emojis don’t render – it was a “thumb’s up”.
I wouldn’t call the Breakthrough Institute “environmentalist” – they are funded by billionaires (the Pritzkers), and their board is stuffed with financiers, biotech and corporate consultants. Rather than Shellenberger’s “universal prosperity” we should look to E. F. Schumacher, who reminded us that the problem of overconsumption is at root a compensation for nihilism.
Could the answer to this be a policy whereby every citizen gets a certain amount of annual energy credits (roughly equal to the affordability of local earnings) and any usage over that is subjected to sharply increasing tax?
I have always been an environmental moderate, and I will always rank adequate housing resources above energy saving, especially in California. But at the risk of sounding like a monocle-adjusting Tech oligarch, I think you would persuade more people if you conceded even a tiny point of the environmental issue. How about build tons of housing in as green a way as we can without raising costs exorbitantly? Isn’t NIMBYism a bigger threat to planned housing than “the Greens”? How about allowing local energy production and consumption with a plan to gradually replace a reasonable percentage of it with clean energy, as clean energy gets cheaper? Does it really have to be all-or-none? Investing in better public transportation and light rail would also make it easier for people who can’t afford to live in city centers to commute to work in an environmentally friendly (and mentally healthier) way. I also think the word ‘pogrom’ is out of place here, especially when the target is energy companies.
When we find a clean energy source, we’ll get back to you.
When did tenants become ‘renters’? ugly word!
Unaffordable, insufficient housing, loss of manufacturing, increasing inequality, escalating fuel prices, phasing out of fossil fuel cars, etc, etc….
Welcome to the UK’s world California!
As a 4th generation Californian, I agree with this assessment. “Green Jim Crow” functions as a regressive penalty, first on the poor and then on the struggling middle class, no matter the ethnic identity. Very few who live here fail to be deeply impressed by nature’s beauty, but stewardship is one thing, and a ruthless levelling on the basis of shaky science, is quite another. Sure it’s nice to imagine carbon-free energy — but at this point in time, as they say, “you can’t get there from here”. Modest, careful scaffolding has to be done. If we change horses in mid-stream, we’re liable to learn that the stream we are up is Crap Creek, and us without a paddle.
Came across the Breakthrough Institute report from another site, tried sincerely to read the whole tendentious, dreadful thing line-by-line. Apologies to the author for any missed content. But:
Its author appears to blame minorities’ economic hardship on California’s “racist climate housing policies” and California’s “racist climate transportation policies,” without mentioning the drastic demographic change that Calif. experienced over the last four decades since 1980: the replacement of blacks and low-income workers of all races by waves of immigration, mostly by Hispanics/Latinos (both legal but mostly undocumented), in the state’s workforce and in housing. This change is well documented (see 2017 UCLA report published in conjunction with Los Angeles Black Workers Center):
“Construction has offered a lot of new jobs to Angelenos over the last several decades, but those positions don’t seem to be going to black workers. There were 7,012 black workers in construction in 2014, 2,000 fewer than there were in 1980, according to census data analyzed by UCLA.
“That 23% drop compares with an overall increase of 120,840 construction workers of all races during those 34 years, or 80%.
“Those new jobs aren’t going to white workers, either. There were nearly 40,000 fewer white construction workers in Los Angeles in 2014 compared with 1980, a decline of about 40%.
“Latinos, however, have significantly upped their representation. There were more than 185,000 Latino construction workers in Los Angeles in 2014, five times as many as in 1980. (Emphasis mine.)
In addition to demographic changes: Manufacturing has been lost in every state since the 1980s, not just California. High-tech industries have moved into the Bay Area—for good or ill—forcing workers out to more affordable exurbs.
To ignore these seismic changes, and place all the blame on a handful of climate-change initiatives (a “green” Jim Crow, for god sake) shows the author’s utter lack of sincerity
Came across the Breakthrough Institute report from another site, tried sincerely to read the whole tendentious, dreadful thing line-by-line. Apologies to the author for any missed content. But:
Its author appears to blame minorities’ economic hardship on California’s “racist climate housing policies” and California’s “racist climate transportation policies,” without mentioning the drastic demographic change that Calif. experienced over the last four decades since 1980: the replacement of blacks and low-income workers of all races by waves of immigration, mostly by Hispanics/Latinos (both legal but mostly undocumented), in the state’s workforce and in housing. This change is well documented (see 2017 UCLA report published in conjunction with Los Angeles Black Workers Center):
“Construction has offered a lot of new jobs to Angelenos over the last several decades, but those positions don’t seem to be going to black workers. There were 7,012 black workers in construction in 2014, 2,000 fewer than there were in 1980, according to census data analyzed by UCLA.
“That 23% drop compares with an overall increase of 120,840 construction workers of all races during those 34 years, or 80%.
“Those new jobs aren’t going to white workers, either. There were nearly 40,000 fewer white construction workers in Los Angeles in 2014 compared with 1980, a decline of about 40%.
“Latinos, however, have significantly upped their representation. There were more than 185,000 Latino construction workers in Los Angeles in 2014, five times as many as in 1980. (Emphasis mine.)
In addition to demographic changes: Manufacturing has been lost in every state since the 1980s, not just California. High-tech industries have moved into the Bay Area—for good or ill—forcing workers out to more affordable exurbs.
To ignore these seismic changes, and place all the blame on a handful of climate-change initiatives (a “green” Jim Crow, for god sake) shows the author’s utter lack of sincerity
Well, well. There are lots of problems in California. Extreme income inequality, racial inequality, poverty, limited space, high cost of living. But it just so hapens that all of them are caused by the climate policy that the author happens to dislike? How very wonderful!
The article very clearly laid out the mechanisms through which the climate policy causes income equality: higher energy prices, lower housing and loss of manufacturing / energy jobs .
So which of these factors do you think
A. Has no linkage to climate policy
B. Has no effect on income inequality
This comment highlights the biggest problem with the West which will bring it down: a mass of “educated” people with inflated ego, cult like beliefs, inability to think or analyse arguments and disproportionate influence in shaping policy.
The very same people who came up with Covid lockdown policies, enabling them to work comfortably from home whilst those who could not do this suffered considerable hardship.
We have them in the UK too and with similar results. It has always struck me as odd that those who most champion ‘the poor’ are the ones whose policies cause them the most harm.