Central Coast’s Antidote to Anti-Climate Policies?

A Monday panel between some of Santa Barbara’s greenest minds was jam-packed with words banned by the U.S. government. 

The U.S. Department of Energy would have flinched at the multiple mentions of climate change, clean energy, emissions, justice, and sustainability. But the president’s hostility toward environmental actions, especially against fossil fuels, was Monday’s main topic of conversation. 

Panel participant Dave Fortson, the chief operating officer of Regen Network, a company focused on financing ecological regeneration, called this the era of “green hushing” — the inability to communicate about ecological health in the time of Trump. 

“Everyone is watching their backs,” he said.

But the panel was hosted by the nevertheless loud Central Coast activists at the Community Environmental Council. Voices from all over the political, educational, philanthropic, and activism spectrum were represented for an hour-long discussion about how the feds are ripping through environmental protections like paper and how their organizations have been affected — or how they’ve persisted, or how they can help. 

It was a way to mash heads together as the Trump administration rescinds age-old environmental protections — including the Roadless Rule and parts of the Endangered Species Act — makes cuts to clean energy, tries to open up the California coast to new offshore oil leases, and turns its back on climate science and research.

We may be past the days of activists chaining themselves to trees, but this was a diplomatic parallel. Sitting in the center of the circle, hosts Congressmember Salud Carbajal (D-Santa Barbara) and CEC Chief Executive Officer Sigrid Wright listened to the more than 20 panelists share their plight and offer potential community solutions. 

Carbajal called them the region’s “antidote to the Trump administration’s misinformation campaign.”  

“I mean, it’s an environment that we’ve never seen from any presidential administration,” Carbajal later told the Independent. “Trump is trying to get everybody to adhere to his value set as the norm. I mean, he’s full of shit.”

“This new wave of federal disinvestment threatens to unravel years of hard-won gain and puts our region already impacted by climate change at even greater risk,” he added.

Topics included the many ways U.S. policy feels as though it is moving backward. Alelia Parenteau, director of the City of Santa Barbara’s clean energy program, spoke of the tough choices being made at the local level — such as which Santa Barbara beaches to save from sea-level rise — as her 45-person staff loses morale “if the federal government can’t support them.”

Speakers lamented the whiplash of losing federal funding and then having it reinstated by a judge, a common battle between the administration and nonprofit organizations. Garrett Wong with the County of Santa Barbara noted the state’s challenges, saying California currently “does not produce real solutions to creating energy affordability” and has recently prioritized housing production over environmental protections.

Others highlighted fears of federal actions to drill or develop national forests, including Los Padres, and other protected ecosystems. Sable Offshore was brought up many times, considering its attempts to restart offshore oil production and transport it through Santa Barbara County. Leaders from UC Santa Barbara spoke of the administration’s “devastating impacts to science” as it defunds existing research — UCSB has lost about $17 million in grants — or refuses to fund new initiatives. 

On the other hand, panelists suggested how philanthropy and other financing methods may be able to underwrite some projects and noted what local governments are doing or could do more of. Parenteau with the City of Santa Barbara said that “local governments are currently organizing a Climate Policy Alliance. Climate-forward cities in California are joining forces to get more space at the state legislature and eventually, the federal legislature, so I invite you to give us access,” she told Carbajal.

Others highlighted what they have been able to accomplish despite it all — such as the CEC, which saw record electric vehicle adoptions in 2025, according to climate projects manager Sean McArthur. 

“It feels like we’re really suffering from this hope gap,” Wright said when asked what inspired her to host the panel. “What can we do to lean into this moment together? There’s still opportunity, and we are the birthplace of the modern environmental movement, and this is still really important.” 

Although panelists did a lot of “comparing notes of what it feels like to have your cage rattled,” she said, Santa Barbara is a “lighthouse community.” 

“I did really feel some sparks or pockets of opportunity,” she added.

Carbajal agreed. He acknowledged the ongoing government shutdown, saying it made the conversation — one with a heavy emphasis on federal grants — even more striking. But at the end of the panel, he offered words of encouragement: “We’ll get through this,” he said, if the community continues to discuss and strategize “how to deal with the challenges before us.”

“I hope our community can continue to shed light on the chaos that’s coming from this administration,” he said. “The Central Coast doesn’t wait for permission from Washington to do what’s right.”