California’s Addiction to Oil and Gas Is Poisoning Black People
The state portrays itself as a leader in climate action but is still a top U.S. oil producer. And it’s not good for Black Californians.
Earlier this month, the Planning Commission of Kern County, California, recommended that the county’s board of supervisors approve the fast-tracking of over 67,000 new oil and gas wells. Kern County already has more than 35,000 active oil and gas wells, some of which have leaked oil into the Kern River’s watershed, and living near them has been impacting the health of the county’s residents.
Kern County is predominantly Latinx, and its median household income is nearly 30% less than the state as a whole, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. There aren’t many Black folx in Kern, who make up 6.3% of the county’s population, but California’s addiction to oil and gas — which I cover in this week’s Color of Climate, a weekly column at Momentum’s sibling publication Future Human — has been affecting large Black communities throughout the state.
Let’s start with Los Angeles, one of the birthplaces of California’s oil boom in the late 1800s. I remember the shock I experienced the first time I saw the Inglewood Oil Field. As I pulled up to a burrito spot for lunch, I saw…
