A Matter of Degrees

I generally really like this show, and greatly respect the hosts, but I have to push back on the tack taken here, led by the guest Dave Jones, that the big sinners in the California insurance crisis are oil companies. I am NO FAN of oil and gas. But let’s widen the frame a little. What about car companies that have fought improved mileage standards and electrification tooth and nail, the highway building industry and its associated unions which actively block progress on transit and other alternatives, homeowners and cities that have refused to build infill multifamily housing thus driving development further and further out from job centers, and to top it all off, white America’s centuries-long attachment to segregation which is the ideological underpinning of post-war suburbanization, much of which was encoded into law at every level of government (see The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein). Feel free to harsh the oil companies, but you need to look at the bigger picture to understand the phenomenon.

I’ve listened to a few episodes before which were all good but just heard the episode with Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and it was phenomenal. It was the perfect mix of pragmatic, thoughtful, and hopeful. Exactly what I needed amidst all this tumult.

I always feel less anxious, more informed, more hopeful and less alone when I listen to this podcast. I wish everyone would listen!

Listening to an ep from November where a guest claims that their friends were democrats until Covid when they lost their businesses and now are trump supporters because they were dissatisfied with status quo. This makes no sense because trump was president the first year of Covid (aka the status quo) so why would they become trump supporters. Concerned the first thing out of your guests mouth is factually incorrect/ logically impossible and there is no follow up.

The show is pretty good, would like to give a higher rating. But Dr. Leah Stokes is based in CA and when the CPUC attacked the climate benefits of rooftop solar, Stoked stayed silent. Her platform and mission required action but she abandoned us. Do a show on the overall costs AND benefits of rooftop solar especially in CA please.