Science
Gas prices could rise after vote by California regulators
California air quality regulators late Friday approved tougher rules to encourage use of lower-carbon fuels, overriding objections that the action would lead to higher gasoline prices for motorists.
On an 12-to-2 vote, the California Air Resources Board approved amendments to the state’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard, or LCFS, which aims to shift California’s fuel dependence away from gasoline and toward lower-carbon fuels such as biodiesel, hydrogen and electricity.
The board members voting for the plan, some looking bleary-eyed by the end of the 12-hour meeting, said the new rules were needed to move the state closer to its goal of no longer burning fossil fuels.
“From a climate perspective, this is absolutely necessary,” said board member Hector De La Torre.
Dean Florez, a former Democratic state lawmaker, was one of two board members to vote no. He said one of his concerns was that the plan would make driving more expensive in a state that already has the second-highest pump prices in the nation after Hawaii.
“I’m just kind of wondering how we can in all good conscience, say that … somehow we’re not a cause of this,” Florez said.
Of the 14 voting members on CARB’s board, 12 were appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom and confirmed by the state Senate. Florez was appointed by the state Senate. De La Torre was appointed by the state Assembly.
California Air Resources Board staffers estimated last year that the new rules could raise the price of a gallon of gas by as much as 47 cents next year. By 2040, the added cost to the price per gallon could be $1.80, staff members estimated in their 2023 document.
Since then, and again Friday, CARB officials asserted that those estimates were flawed and that they no longer believe the action will boost gas prices.
“Any claims that LCFS is responsible for high gas prices is misleading at best and not supported by the data,” Dillon Miner, CARB’s staff air pollution specialist, told the packed auditorium in Riverside on Friday.
Those assurances were met with skepticism by some speakers during the seven-hour public hearing.
Assemblymember Tom Lackey (R-Palmdale) told the board that residents of his district, many of whom were lower-income, often drove 100 miles a day.
“This is all about survival, financial survival,” Lackey said. “We simply cannot afford this.”
Nearly 13,000 Californians signed a petition written by Republican state senators that asked the board to postpone the vote until CARB provided information on how much the amendments would increase gas prices.
Even some Democrats spoke out about how the amendments could raise gas prices, which would especially burden low-income people who must drive to their jobs.
“I represent a working-class rural district that is largely dependent on agricultural jobs,” Assemblymember Esmeralda Soria (D-Merced) wrote in a Thursday letter to CARB Chair Liane Randolph. “It is these working families that can least afford even a modest increase in fuel prices.”
Many speakers at the public hearing urged the board to reject the amendments for reasons that did not involve the price of gasoline.
Some said they lived in the Inland Empire where the meeting was held. They spoke about how the pollution from trucks and other vehicles was continuing to harm the health of their families. They said they believed the program was benefiting companies by allowing them to continue to pollute and that the board should do more to support electric vehicles.
Environmentalists told the board they were disappointed that the amendments favored fuels such as renewable diesel that is made from food crops including soybeans and canola. Such biofuels result in turning land that was once used to grow food into that producing fuel.
Gary Hughes at BiofuelWatch told the board the plan would be “a driver of global deforestation” as more land was used to grow plants for the biofuel. “These fuels are not a climate solution,” he said.
Because of the LCFS, California now accounts for nearly all renewable diesel consumption in the U.S. Most of that fuel is not made in California but trucked in from other states or imported, mostly from Singapore.
“These dirty fuels are wolves in sheep’s clothing,” Nina Robertson of Earthjustice told the board.
Supporters of the amendments included dozens of executives from the producers of alternative fuels and electric vehicles, as well as other companies that have been financially benefiting from the program.
Steve Lesher of Shell U.S.A. told the board that the LCFS had prompted the oil company to invest in hydrogen and biofuel production, as well as electric vehicle charging stations. He called the program an “investment attractor.”
The LCFS program was created in 2009 under Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. CARB says the program has resulted in more than 30 billion gallons of petroleum being displaced by low-carbon fuels. The program, the agency said, has also helped California reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 20%.
The state uses a carbon-trading market to encourage producers to make the alternative fuels. Producers that don’t meet the state’s low carbon standard must buy credits from those who do, which pushes companies to develop cleaner options.
Under the current program, fuel producers had to reduce the carbon intensity of their fuels by 20% of the levels in 2010 by 2030.
The proposal approved Friday increased the carbon-intensity reduction target in 2030 to 30%. And the target would leap to 90% in 2045.
As the standard tightens, the cost of the credits is expected to rise. Critics say this cost will be passed on to consumers.
CARB officials say that isn’t correct. They say there is no direct relationship between the fuel credit prices and the cost of gas at the pump. And they say data show that the current fuel standard, before the amendments approved Friday, has added just 10 cents to the price of a gallon of gas.
Danny Cullenward, a climate economist in San Francisco and senior fellow at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania, estimated in an October report that under the new rules, the 2025 cost could be as high as 65 cents a gallon.
“It’s absolutely irresponsible and unacceptable that this board has chosen to ignore how its policies will impact gas prices,” state Sen. Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh (R-Yucaipa) said in a statement. “How can they possibly vote to approve it if they don’t even know what it will do to Californians at the pump?”
Science
Cluster of farmworkers diagnosed with rare animal-borne disease in Ventura County
A cluster of workers at Ventura County berry farms have been diagnosed with a rare disease often transmitted through sick animals’ urine, according to a public health advisory distributed to local doctors by county health officials Tuesday.
The bacterial infection, leptospirosis, has resulted in severe symptoms for some workers, including meningitis, an inflammation of the brain lining and spinal cord. Symptoms for mild cases included headaches and fevers.
The disease, which can be fatal, rarely spreads from human to human, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Ventura County Public Health has not given an official case count but said it had not identified any cases outside of the agriculture sector. The county’s agriculture commissioner was aware of 18 cases, the Ventura County Star reported.
The health department said it was first contacted by a local physician in October, who reported an unusual trend in symptoms among hospital patients.
After launching an investigation, the department identified leptospirosis as a probable cause of the illness and found most patients worked on caneberry farms that utilize hoop houses — greenhouse structures to shelter the crops.
As the investigation to identify any additional cases and the exact sources of exposure continues, Ventura County Public Health has asked healthcare providers to consider a leptospirosis diagnosis for sick agricultural workers, particularly berry harvesters.
Rodents are a common source and transmitter of disease, though other mammals — including livestock, cats and dogs — can transmit it as well.
The disease is spread through bodily fluids, such as urine, and is often contracted through cuts and abrasions that contact contaminated water and soil, where the bacteria can survive for months.
Humans can also contract the illness through contaminated food; however, the county health agency has found no known health risks to the general public, including through the contact or consumption of caneberries such as raspberries and blackberries.
Symptom onset typically occurs between two and 30 days after exposure, and symptoms can last for months if untreated, according to the CDC.
The illness often begins with mild symptoms, with fevers, chills, vomiting and headaches. Some cases can then enter a second, more severe phase that can result in kidney or liver failure.
Ventura County Public Health recommends agriculture and berry harvesters regularly rinse any cuts with soap and water and cover them with bandages. They also recommend wearing waterproof clothing and protection while working outdoors, including gloves and long-sleeve shirts and pants.
While there is no evidence of spread to the larger community, according to the department, residents should wash hands frequently and work to control rodents around their property if possible.
Pet owners can consult a veterinarian about leptospirosis vaccinations and should keep pets away from ponds, lakes and other natural bodies of water.
Science
Political stress: Can you stay engaged without sacrificing your mental health?
It’s been two weeks since Donald Trump won the presidential election, but Stacey Lamirand’s brain hasn’t stopped churning.
“I still think about the election all the time,” said the 60-year-old Bay Area resident, who wanted a Kamala Harris victory so badly that she flew to Pennsylvania and knocked on voters’ doors in the final days of the campaign. “I honestly don’t know what to do about that.”
Neither do the psychologists and political scientists who have been tracking the country’s slide toward toxic levels of partisanship.
Fully 69% of U.S. adults found the presidential election a significant source of stress in their lives, the American Psychological Assn. said in its latest Stress in America report.
The distress was present across the political spectrum, with 80% of Republicans, 79% of Democrats and 73% of independents surveyed saying they were stressed about the country’s future.
That’s unhealthy for the body politic — and for voters themselves. Stress can cause muscle tension, headaches, sleep problems and loss of appetite. Chronic stress can inflict more serious damage to the immune system and make people more vulnerable to heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, infertility, clinical anxiety, depression and other ailments.
In most circumstances, the sound medical advice is to disengage from the source of stress, therapists said. But when stress is coming from politics, that prescription pits the health of the individual against the health of the nation.
“I’m worried about people totally withdrawing from politics because it’s unpleasant,” said Aaron Weinschenk, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin–Green Bay who studies political behavior and elections. “We don’t want them to do that. But we also don’t want them to feel sick.”
Modern life is full of stressors of all kinds: paying bills, pleasing difficult bosses, getting along with frenemies, caring for children or aging parents (or both).
The stress that stems from politics isn’t fundamentally different from other kinds of stress. What’s unique about it is the way it encompasses and enhances other sources of stress, said Brett Ford, a social psychologist at the University of Toronto who studies the link between emotions and political engagement.
For instance, she said, elections have the potential to make everyday stressors like money and health concerns more difficult to manage as candidates debate policies that could raise the price of gas or cut off access to certain kinds of medical care.
Layered on top of that is the fact that political disagreements have morphed into moral conflicts that are perceived as pitting good against evil.
“When someone comes into power who is not on the same page as you morally, that can hit very deeply,” Ford said.
Partisanship and polarization have raised the stakes as well. Voters who feel a strong connection to a political party become more invested in its success. That can make a loss at the ballot box feel like a personal defeat, she said.
There’s also the fact that we have limited control over the outcome of an election. A patient with heart disease can improve their prognosis by taking medicine, changing their diet, getting more exercise or quitting smoking. But a person with political stress is largely at the mercy of others.
“Politics is many forms of stress all rolled into one,” Ford said.
Weinschenk observed this firsthand the day after the election.
“I could feel it when I went into my classroom,” said the professor, whose research has found that people with political anxiety aren’t necessarily anxious in general. “I have a student who’s transgender and a couple of students who are gay. Their emotional state was so closed down.”
That’s almost to be expected in a place like Wisconsin, whose swing-state status caused residents to be bombarded with political messages. The more campaign ads a person is exposed to, the greater the risk of being diagnosed with anxiety, depression or another psychological ailment, according to a 2022 study in the journal PLOS One.
Political messages seem designed to keep voters “emotionally on edge,” said Vaile Wright, a licensed psychologist in Villa Park, Ill., and a member of the APA’s Stress in America team.
“It encourages emotion to drive our decision-making behavior, as opposed to logic,” Wright said. “When we’re really emotionally stimulated, it makes it so much more challenging to have civil conversation. For politicians, I think that’s powerful, because emotions can be very easily manipulated.”
Making voters feel anxious is a tried-and-true way to grab their attention, said Christopher Ojeda, a political scientist at UC Merced who studies mental health and politics.
“Feelings of anxiety can be mobilizing, definitely,” he said. “That’s why politicians make fear appeals — they want people to get engaged.”
On the other hand, “feelings of depression are demobilizing and take you out of the political system,” said Ojeda, author of “The Sad Citizen: How Politics is Depressing and Why it Matters.”
“What [these feelings] can tell you is, ‘Things aren’t going the way I want them to. Maybe I need to step back,’” he said.
Genessa Krasnow has been seeing a lot of that since the election.
The Seattle entrepreneur, who also campaigned for Harris, said it grates on her to see people laughing in restaurants “as if nothing had happened.” At a recent book club meeting, her fellow group members were willing to let her vent about politics for five minutes, but they weren’t interested in discussing ways they could counteract the incoming president.
“They’re in a state of disengagement,” said Krasnow, who is 56. She, meanwhile, is looking for new ways to reach young voters.
“I am exhausted. I am so sad,” she said. “But I don’t believe that disengaging is the answer.”
That’s the fundamental trade-off, Ojeda said, and there’s no one-size-fits-all solution.
“Everyone has to make a decision about how much engagement they can tolerate without undermining their psychological well-being,” he said.
Lamirand took steps to protect her mental health by cutting social media ties with people whose values aren’t aligned with hers. But she will remain politically active and expects to volunteer for phone-banking duty soon.
“Doing something is the only thing that allows me to feel better,” Lamirand said. “It allows me to feel some level of control.”
Ideally, Ford said, people would not have to choose between being politically active and preserving their mental health. She is investigating ways to help people feel hopeful, inspired and compassionate about political challenges, since these emotions can motivate action without triggering stress and anxiety.
“We want to counteract this pattern where the more involved you are, the worse you are,” Ford said.
The benefits would be felt across the political spectrum. In the APA survey, similar shares of Democrats, Republicans and independents agreed with statements like, “It causes me stress that politicians aren’t talking about the things that are most important to me,” and, “The political climate has caused strain between my family members and me.”
“Both sides are very invested in this country, and that is a good thing,” Wright said. “Antipathy and hopelessness really doesn’t serve us in the long run.”
Science
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