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Steve Horn, who covers climate change issues for The Real News, returns to talk about Chevron’s astounding plan for a solar-powered fracking site in California.Horn is a bright young journalist and repeat guest here. His recent reporting deserves your attention, and wider distribution.
We open with Horn’s account of recent exchanges he’s had with legendary Prof. Noam Chomsky about the Democratic platform on climate change. We also get Horn’s view of the film Planet of the Humans, produced by Michael Moore and Jeff Gibbs, and released on Earth Day this year.
Horn recently broke the story on the end of the fracking moratorium imposed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom last year, which was quietly lifted in April. This led to a remarkable permit for Chevron and Goldman Sachs to develop a fracking site in Lost Hills, a tiny town in Kern County. To give it a coat of green, and to exploit the law intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the operation will get its energy from a new solar array. Horn also describes the proponents’ effort to increase the setback from oil drilling sites as a way of selling the project, but that proposal was watered down and then voted down by legislative committees in Sacramento.
Horn’s reporting recently led to the resignation of the chair of a state panel that’s working with Harvard scientists exploring the possibility of solar geoengineering to cool the earth. Louise Bedsworth used state email to engage with the Harvard team, and resigned as chair while remaining a member of the California Strategic Growth Council.
We also discuss Horn’s near-exclusive reporting on a major Arizona wildfire in June, and his reports on the exploitation of prisoners to fight wildfires in Arizona and California.