It all seems to have come to coincide with Donald Trump’s return to power. The failure of progressive leadership has been laid bare in an unprecedented way, as catastrophic wildfires have destroyed entire neighborhoods in deep blue Los Angeles, the result not only of natural forces like unusually high winds and dry conditions but also of an epic collapse. Of any real leadership in the Golden State and the misplaced priorities of elected officials like Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and camera-addicted Governor Gavin Newsom.
We’ve covered the seemingly endless distractions of what amounts to formal administration in this one-party state, but it gets worse. For every failure we report, another quickly follows. While Newsom and his ilk endlessly berate us over our gas-powered cars, wildfires — which could have been prevented through efficient management of our forests — are now causing far more damage than they caused. One million Ford Explorers could do just that.
And now the clean, green technology he touts is coming back to haunt him, right there Huge fire Thursday night at a lithium battery plant in northern Monterey County. What’s a little lithium smoke in the air in the name of progress, right?
Highway 1 was closed and evacuations were ordered in the Moss Landing and Elkhorn Slough area after a large fire broke out Thursday afternoon at a battery storage plant in Moss Landing in northern Monterey County.
The fire, which burned out of control Thursday night, spewing huge flames and clouds of dangerous black smoke, was reported at about 3 p.m. at the plant on Highway 1, Monterey County spokesman Nicholas Pascoli said.
About 1,500 people have been ordered to evacuate from the areas of Moss Landing south of Elkhorn Slough, north of Molera Road and Monterey Dunes Road, and west of Castroville Boulevard and Elkhorn Road to the ocean, he said.
🔥 😱 🔥 BIG NEWS: Massive fire in the world’s largest lithium battery storage facility, of course in… @gavinnewsom California run!
In addition to making it impossible to use solar energy during the evenings, they release a smoke of very toxic heavy metals.
Disgust! https://t.co/RONkpVEXTj
— Houman David Hemmati, MD, PhD (@houmanhemmati) January 17, 2025
Don’t worry, though; All in the name of leadership. Newsom recently declared that “California leads the nation in environmental stewardship” when he announced an executive order aimed at streamlining regulatory requirements to begin rebuilding in the devastated Pacific Rim. My belief is that “environmental stewardship” does not include wildfires that send so much smoke into the atmosphere that it can be seen from space, nor toxic battery fires that emit toxic chemicals into our collective atmosphere.
Nothing to see here people:
The plant is located on the site of the 1950s-era PG&E Moss Landing natural gas plant that can be seen by its massive smokestacks near the port of Moss Landing. The first phase was completed in 2020, and expanded to 750 megawatts in 2023. Vistra sells the electricity stored there to PG&E, which also owns another battery storage plant on the north side of the site that holds hundreds of Tesla battery packs. It didn’t look like that facility was burning by 8 p.m
The facility has been the site of other fires before.
A third of Gavin Newsom’s green energy storage achievement is currently sending huge plumes of toxic lithium into the atmosphere. pic.twitter.com/fxBe8dLpSj
– Kevin Dalton (@TheKevinDalton) January 17, 2025
I’m not opposed to progress and technology, and maybe one day soon we’ll find a clean, safe energy solution (like nuclear power, which my colleague Ward Clark champions so vocally), but in the meantime, Joe Biden-Gavin Newsom et al. Efforts to shove “solutions” that aren’t ready for prime time down our throats before they’re ready have proven more disastrous than the effects of our SUVs, gas stoves, or water heaters.
At this point, it’s hard not to argue that the cure is much worse than the “disease” they claim is climate change. Meanwhile, if they really believed that global warming was the cause of these fiery disasters, why weren’t they better prepared for them? Burning questions that need answers.
Gavin Newsom’s (political) world has sunk this week, and this latest toxic fire is destroying it even more.
It’s time for a different way.