🚨🚨 Today, we’re launching “Stop Greed Build Green,” a strategic framework and agenda to confront the affordability crisis and the climate crisis together by putting working people in charge of the economy and the climate transition. (1/10)

"Is Lithium Valley really a vision that's going to be a clean energy hub?" said James J. A. Blair, a professor at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, who has studied lithium extraction. "Or is it kind of a Trojan horse for these other industrial harms?" www.nytimes.com/2026/04/06/u...

If your position is that next-gen industries can and should be built responsibly to avoid worsening the harms of a legacy of extractive development in places abandoned by oil/gas/coal/etc., you should take a keen interest in Lithium Valley. You get at most one shot at getting these things right.

I had the privilege of leading the research and writing of this new report commissioned by Comite Civico Del Valle and The POWER Coalition that analyzes Imperial County’s Draft Lithium Valley Specific Plan and its environmental health implications. www.ccvhealth.org/reports/powe...

Cal State University’s deal with OpenAI — providing ChatGPT to all faculty, students, and staff — will expire in June 2026. Amid the prospect of layoffs in the CSU, we’re asking the chancellor not to renew this costly and demoralizing contract. Link below and anyone can sign:

The 1956 Lumbee Act was amended this week, concluding a decades-long effort to have Congress strike discriminatory language that subjected Lumbees to nearly 70 years of partial federal recognition. But no longer. The Lumbee Tribe of NC is now *fully* recognized by the US—the 575th Native Nation.

It was a pleasure to be interviewed for this excellent EcoJustice Radio podcast episode that focuses on geothermal lithium development at the Salton Sea. It includes critical insights from community partners as well. socal350.org/ecojustice-r...

I have been wanting something like this for so long because of the missed opportunities in many Community Benefits Agreements to date. Feel lucky so many people are committed to making a better world and laying the groundwork for it with this sort of solid research.

Our new report examines a wide range of detailed case studies of communities involved in community benefits agreement (CBA) negotiations. open.substack.com/pub/climatec...

New report on community benefit agreements!!! It was super fun to work with this amazing team and with @cplusc.bsky.social on a timely and important topic.

Who should benefit from the energy transition? Communities? Workers? Billionaires? As federal posture toward a clean energy supply chain shifts rapidly, our new report shows that communities are turning to community benefit agreements (CBAs) to gain control over their futures. 👇

Excited to share our new report for @cplusc.bsky.social Building Community Power: Community Benefits Agreements Across the Global Energy Supply Chain This is practically a book’s worth of research and writing. An interactive CBA toolkit is also forthcoming. Grateful to work with such a great team!

Check out our new report! The Devil Is In The Details: Environmental Health Impacts Of The Hell’s Kitchen Lithium and Power Project ccvhealth.org/hells-kitche...

California’s clean energy goals will only succeed if they include the communities and tribes most impacted. By embracing stronger mitigation measures, Lithium Valley could power a clean energy future that also empowers local residents. calexicochronicle.com/2025/09/15/o...

Name added.

Copies just arrived and can’t wait to read *Extraction* by the brilliant @triofrancos.bsky.social

My book *Salvaging Empire* and many other great reads are on sale for 50% off this week if you order from the @cornellupress.bsky.social website with the code 095000 today through Friday, June 27th! www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...

Such a great album!

Here's the updated share link to access our Sustainability Science article: rdcu.be/epvQW

Check out our new peer-reviewed article published in Sustainability Science on solar energy development near the Salton Sea in Imperial Valley, California! Grateful to collaborate with brilliant colleagues @dustinmulvaney.bsky.social and @alidacantor.bsky.social

Our research funding may be cancelled, but I am glad to share this new pub from our work on water, energy, and environmental justice! We created a lesson plan (open access!) with teaching ideas for high school and undergrad geography classes. #geosky @dustinmulvaney.bsky.social @jjablair.bsky.social

I'll be speaking here tonight about our report "Green sacrifice zones in Chile? Threats and risks of mining and energy expansion in the territories and ecosystems of the Atacama Desert" Join here: ucdavis.zoom.us/j/9908011884... @ffontecillag.bsky.social

Why are minerals so central to geopolitics? How green are electric cars? Why is anti-mining protest increasing? Can the inequalities of the global economy be transformed? I tackle these topics in my book EXTRACTION: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism 👀 September 2025 @wwnorton.bsky.social

I dove to the wreck of Brazil’s last slave ship—and wrote about the global network of maritime archaeologists excavating the Middle Passage www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Boiling rocks 1. Soil pellets mosaics. Boiling Rocks 1 is a series of mosaics featuring compressed pellets made of contaminated soil collected by community scientists in their own yards. Spectrometer. a. Zeolite remediation

In the aftermath of the battery plant fire in California, researchers find evidence of heavy metals in the soil and residents describe experiences of sore throats. The energy storage industry insists that this incident is an extreme outlier.

I had the pleasure of being a CCI Fellow back in 2023, and the experience had such a positive impact on my dissertation work on lithium mining in the US and Peru. CCI is packed with knowledgeable and kind people doing groundbreaking work. It is truly a fantastic opportunity for young scholars!

Is Global South paying the price for richer countries' green transition? Worrying report on environmental & social impact of 'green' energy projects in Atacama desert, Chile EU, UK & US companies investing @gcabana.bsky.social @criordor.bsky.social www.fundaciontanti.org/2024/12/30/z...

“It’s got a lot of unknowns in terms of air quality,” added James Blair, a geography professor at Cal Poly Pomona who published research on the project. “This is already a degraded region, not only from the impacts of agriculture, but also the receding Salton Sea itself.” doi.org/10.1016/j.ex...

Insightful article by @brentcebul.bsky.social on the tragic shortcomings of Bidenomics: market-making green industrial policy that has largely benefited businesses and middlemen more than working people.

Tamales, feliz noche buena!

Super happy to work w folks at CCI on this new tool to look at how states have been using flexible transportation funding!!! climateandcommunity.org/research/how... States can flex money in federal highway programs to support transit, but have tended to only relatively meager extents...

As lithium mining is promoted in the Salton Sea (California) to produce more electric vehicles and drastically reduce emissions, community organizations from Imperial Valley seek to secure benefits for thousands of residents eager for real opportunities #ValleUnido #Lithium #ImperialValley

Great study here: “Imperial Valley has been imagined in the media as barren, abandoned, and exploitable, allowing policymakers to ignore the social and ecological damage done by industrial agriculture and the possible environmental consequences of geothermal DLE.“

Our latest peer-reviewed article is now published open access in The Extractive Industries and Society! Hydrosocial imaginaries of green extractivism: Water-energy transitions and geothermal lithium development at the Salton Sea in Imperial Valley, California www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

“We are making sure that the community is aware that they’re not coming into these negotiations empty-handed…We have water that has value. We have air that has value. We have public lands that have value. And the minerals under the earth—they have public value, too.” www.kpbs.org/news/environ...

“Renewable energy development projects may be important for mitigating climate change, but companies should not get a free pass just because they frame their projects as green,” Blair considered. www.ivpressonline.com/featured/epa...