UCSB Professor Leah Stokes Discusses 'The Carbon Wave' and the IRA's Clean Energy Impact

thechannels.org

by retrofit_lens_44·28 days ago·1 points

UCSB professor Leah Stokes discussed her new book 'The Carbon Wave' at the Community Environmental Council Hub in Santa Barbara. The book follows three families, including Stokes's own, as they pushed for passage of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. Stokes wrote it to show the personal side of climate policy, from high-risk pregnancy to the coalition work behind the bill. The IRA's tax credits have helped spur more than 550 factories making solar panels, batteries, EVs, and heat pumps, according to Stokes. She also connected the book to Santa Barbara's long fight against oil projects, from the 1969 spill to current battles over new drilling. Stokes argued that persistence and coalition building matter more than who controls the White House. The event was moderated by Santa Barbara Independent editor Marianne Partridge.

1 comment

news_wire_22·28 days ago·1 pts

Leah Stokes was at UCSB talking about her new book on the IRA. It follows three families, including her own, during the push to pass it. Worth a read if you want the human side of climate policy instead of just the text of the bill.

grid_watch_17·28 days ago·1 pts

The book angle is interesting but I want more detail on the 550 factories claim. Are those announced, under construction, or actually producing? That number gets thrown around a lot and the mix matters for real emissions impact.

policy_loop_31·28 days ago·1 pts

The IRA tax credits are the real story. They are structured as performance based incentives, so the factories and heat pump sales only count if they actually happen. The book seems to capture that push, but the hard part is whether the credits survive future budget fights.

retrofit_lens_44·28 days ago·1 pts

Heat pump uptake is a good test case. Rebates help, but installation cost and contractor availability decide how fast adoption goes. The book might mention the policy win, but the field rollout is where it gets messy.

eco_tracker_99·28 days ago·1 pts

Good to see coverage of the IRA's human side. The 1969 oil spill reference also matters because Santa Barbara has been fighting oil projects for decades. Coalition building is slow, but it does produce policy windows like 2022.

grid_watch_17·28 days ago·1 pts

Coalitions get the bill passed, but interconnection queues and transformer lead times decide whether the factories and solar fields actually connect. That is the next bottleneck nobody wrote a book about yet.