Some Thoughts on Green Unionism for March 2026

Article by That Green Union Guy; image created by David Solnit

Here are some not entirely comprehensive, not particularly ideally organized thoughts on energy transition, climate change, decarbonization, and just transition in California for March 2026.

I. Refinery Closures:

1. Another refinery in California (in the Bay Area, specifically), is closing. The aforementioned is the Valero refinery in Benicia (across Carquinez Strait from Martinez). Here is a link to the article in the Guardian.
2. Another refinery in Southern California (Phillips 66) is closing
3. There are discussions of just transition for the workers and communities, but political support for these from the State of California is spotty at best;
4. The Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA) is doing everything they can to blame environmentalists, community activists, and delay the inevitable (and trying to pit workers—whom they actually care little about, except where they can be used as political pawns or tools—against the former);
5. WSPA and the corporations are engaging in a mass PR blitz to push their false narrative, including sponsoring poster boards strategically placed at gas pumps at practically every gas station in CA, as well as a blitz of advertisements on TV and digital platforms;
6. There are studies, such as this one conducted at Stanford University) that debunk the claims, but challenging the aforementioned well-funded PR blitz is an uphill battle.

II. Polluter Pays

1. There is a grassroots mobilization, and an ongoing campaign, to try an pressure the California government to enact a “polluter pays” measure (one that would charge extractive corporations, such as those represented by WSPA, excess profits taxes and other fees) that would include funds for just transition;
2. This is part of a growing, nationwide effort;
3. This has enormous potential to draw in the vast support for the “No Kings” / resistance to MAGA fascism and authoritarianism, as described here.

III. Humboldt Offshore Wind

1. The Biden Administration had proposed several floating offshore wind “call areas” off the California coast, including one particularly promising development in Humboldt County;
2. The proposed Humboldt OSW project has the potential to revitalize a struggling economy, one that had been devastated by the self-created collapse of the timber economy in the 1990s, as well as providing a living example of what a just transition could look like;
3. Although there isn’t unanimous support for the project (some indigenous tribes and back-to-the-land environmentalists oppose it for legitimate, but not unsolvable, reasons - see: here), but it nevertheless has widespread support among locals, including many tribes, unions, workers, environmentalists, and locals (some of which were on opposite sides during the so-called “timber wars” of the 1990s, though not as much as people think (see here; here; and here); and the proposed development was a small piece of a much more ambitious set of goals proposed by the Biden Administration, one which could have created 100,000s of high road, union jobs throughout California, Oregon, and Washington (state), but the Trump Administration has basically shuttered the effort (for now);
4. That said, California is still moving ahead with the proposals, as much as they’re able to do, which is considerable, but will nevertheless delay things, perhaps by half a decade or more.
5. Here is the latest from a local perspective.

IV. Transit Fiscal Cliff

1. Public Transit in California faces a looming “fiscal cliff”, due to a collapse in ridership due to the COVID pandemic. There is a statewide ballot initiative to raise a sales tax to cover the shortfall. This is hardly ideal, because it’ll hit working people much harder than the bosses, and it faces an uphill battle. If it fails, look for transit systems to be subject to an absolute bloodletting.

V. UAW and Green Industrial Policy for California and Beyond

1. The UAW has drafted a comprehensive proposal for a “green industrial policy” for California (see here and here.
2. The study focuses on developing publicly funded manufacturing capacity (with strong union and workforce safeguards) in three particular areas: (a) battery technology; (b) offshore wind; and (c) heat pumps;
3. It proposes various mechanisms for achieving this, including public funding, stronger regulations, and price controls;
4. While this all sounds great, there’s little discussion on how to build a workers’ movement or broad mass movement to build the political and economic leverage necessary to pull this off. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea, and it’s likely the latent support for such a movement is there, but it has to be organized.

VI. Trump’s War of Choice in Iran

(Without wasting a lot of time on all of the angles on this rapidly developing shitstorm of a clusterfuck of a dumpster fire of a holy rolling quagmire from hell, this is a definite black swan event, with very unpredictable outcomes, however the following things are evident):

1. It’s clear that neither Trump nor anyone in his administration with any decision making power thought this through, and it’s backfiring hugely (it there’s little chance that Trump can salvage it politically);
2. Unless Trump pulls out and accepts an embarrassing defeat (or laughingly calls it a victory), this will be a quagmire they won’t easily extricate themselves from;
3. The war is deeply unpopular, and only likely to become more so;
4. It’s already upending fossil fuel supply chains and making their prices balloon. Apart from the massive shockwaves and ripples that will send through the global economy, it will likely bring even more people into the fight to decarbonize;
5. Bill McKibben has an interesting article on this, here which argues, convincingly, that the US and Russia are destroying themselves with their imperialistic hubris (in Iran and Ukraine, respectively), while China is laughing all the way to the bank, because they’re flooding markets with cheap renewables. While that’s potentially a good thing, it carries with it the downside of China’s own imperialistic aims becoming increasingly dominant.

VII. Final Words:

1. To paraphrase Gramsci: this is a time of monsters when the old world is dying and the new struggles to be born;
2. The flood of horrors seeks to overwhelm us, but there is a vast and growing resistance to it. The potential to usher in a much better, new world is there. We need to not give up and help the work along.