The Los Angeles Times published a story Thursday under the headline, “Rick Caruso could soon be L.A. mayor. But he’s got no climate plan,” failing to explain in the article how a single, troubled city can affect global average surface temperature.
Describing climate change as “one of the most pressing challenges facing the city” (original emphasis), writer Sammy Roth argued that wildfires, high temperatures, and potential sea level rises are challenges the city can do something about.
Roth admits: “Yes, an L.A. Times poll found that voters’ top priorities are homelessness, crime and public safety, and affordable housing — which explains why Caruso and other high-profile candidates have focused on those issues.”
But he argues that “Angelenos definitely care about climate change and the environment, with 81% of voters describing air pollution and 64% describing extreme heat as serious threats to their health and safety,” conflating local pollution, which has direct effects on the environment, with greenhouse gases that typically are both invisible and harmless in everyday life.
He fails to show how reducing emissions in L.A. would make any measurable impact on the challenges he lists above.
Though scientists acknowledge that emissions statewide in California have a very small impact on global temperature, one that is dwarfed by emissions from China, activists have sought to lead by example by cutting the city’s fossil fuel use.
Outgoing Mayor Eric Garcetti declared his own version of the “Green New Deal” introduced by “democratic socialist” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) in 2019, abandoning three natural gas plants that supply power to the city, despite officials’ concerns that the city would no longer be able to supply adequate electricity to residents without those plants.
Natural gas is a cleaner-burning fossil fuel whose expanded use has enabled the U.S. to reduce emissions while growing the economy.
A few months after Garcetti announced his plan, Republican John Lee, who opposed the plan, defeated Democrat Loraine Lundquist, who supported it, in a special election for City Council. Lee was backed by local unions who oppose the plan.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.