Imperial County Board of Supervisors meets tomorrow. They will consider a few recommendations from the planning commission including resolutions to deny a water supply assessment, environmental impact report certification, and other variances needed for a large solar + storage project on farmland.🔌💡

Last call before the deadline. Accepting applications until filled.. #academicbluesky 🧪🏡

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.

Building Community Power: Community Benefits Agreements Across the Global Energy Supply Chain.

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...

The School of Planning, Policy, and Environmental Studies at San José State University is hiring an Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies. We welcome applicants from all fields of environmental studies who apply an environmental justice lens to their work. jobs.sjsu.edu/sj/en-us/job...

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!

If you’re interested in the history of how the first solar project approved by the Bureau of Land Management, and the California Energy Commission ended up not getting built, and how the largest solar project in the USA got built on farmland instead. This paper is for you. #EnergySky #GreenSky☀️🔌💡

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

Lithium Valley specific plan for Imperial County extended public comment through May 5. #LithiumValley #SaltonSea #ValleUnido 🏜️🔋🔌💡 imperialcounty.org/lvsp/

Our collaborators at GAIA have a new publication on battery recycling. 🪫♻️🔌💡 #EnergySky #GreenSky #CircularEconomy #JustTransition www.no-burn.org/resources/qa...

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

The future of Lithium Valley. 🔋🔌💡 www.kpbs.org/podcasts/kpb... #SaltonSea #LithiumValley #ValleUnido

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 paper on the Salton Sea, geothermal/lithium extraction, and environmental justice.. Another publication from our broader research project on hydrosocial dynamics and water-energy transitions in the western US. 🏜️🔋🔌💡https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2215409&HistoricalAwards=false

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...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced a settlement with Hell’s Kitchen Geothermal LLC over dredging and ditching work in Imperial County, Calif. that harmed wetlands connected to the Salton Sea. www.epa.gov/newsreleases...

Grateful to learn more about co-ownership and benefit-sharing for Indigenous Peoples from renewable energy infrastructures while highlighting the crucial need to ensure the right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) in IPRightsIntl and BHRRC's new report: bit.ly/exploring-sh...

New Open Access article! "The water–climate nexus: Intersections across sectors". We look at intersections between water and climate across four sectors: environment; drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene; food and agriculture; and energy. wires.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Water and renewable energy transitions, our latest article on the regional impacts of lithium extraction.💧 The Geographer, special issue on Water as Life, under the surface of water security and scarcity. issuu.com/rsgspubs/doc...

Today is giving me all the feels. Climate & Community Project turns into Climate & Community INSTITUTE! I'm so proud of what we have built over 4 yrs. We are more than a short-term project-- we want to be an institutional home for the climate left. climateandcommunity.org

“Data centers drain massive volumes of energy and water for chillers and cooling towers to prevent servers from overheating” www.latimes.com/environment/...

“Studies show that direct lithium extraction may require 10 times more freshwater than conventional lithium brine evaporation that is already notorious for depleting water,” said James Blair, associate professor of geography and anthropology at Cal Poly Pomona, who is an advisor to the groups.

“Controlled Thermal Resources boasts about the sustainability attributes of direct lithium extraction, yet public health, hazardous waste, and water concerns remain unresolved” said Luis Olmedo, executive director of Comite Civico Del Valle www.latimes.com/environment/...