Mike Lopez represents the United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters, Local 114, based in Buellton. He was a vocal supporter of new oil development in Cat Canyon because it would mean union jobs, but all three projects withdrew last year. He confessed to feeling torn between his union duties and the real-world negative impacts of climate change. “Good God,” he would wonder. “Are they right? Are we doing the right thing?”
A new bill trekking through California’s Legislature would end oil extraction techniques like cyclic-steam injection, which is used in Cat Canyon. But that’s the wrong solution, Lopez said.
“Who’s for a dirty planet?” he asked. “Nobody is. But before you get rid of all fossil-fuel cars, every piece of equipment or plastic made from oil, you’ve got to build toward a future. We don’t have anything legitimate to replace it.” He pointed to the toxins created by lithium mining — used in making automobile batteries — and solar panel manufacturing