CATAWBA COUNTY — Jesse Alden, the Democrat running for Catawba County commissioner who just crowdsourced a “getaway driver” for anti-ICE “trouble,” is also on Facebook lecturing American livestock farmers about methane and climate change.
Same candidate. Same race. Different sermon — aimed at the farm economy that still feeds this county.
In a public Facebook post, Alden opened with the favorite line of every climate scold in America: “Follow the science folks.”
He then claimed water use for raising and feeding livestock in the United States “is less efficient than most developed nations and does contribute to methane in the atmosphere thus contributing to global warming and climate change, period, a matter of fact.”
That is not a soft suggestion. That is a Democratic commissioner hopeful telling Catawba County that its cattle, poultry, and livestock operations are a climate problem — full stop — while wrapping himself in “science.”
Collaborate with farmers? Then he swings at industry
Alden briefly nodded that “leaders and farmers” can “collaborate and cooperate” toward “sustainability and environmentally-focused” goals. Then he turned on the county board he wants to join.
“If our County acommissioners were so concerned about the farmers and environments,” he wrote — misspelling commissioners on the way in — “then why have they continued allowing data centers and corporations to come in and use the resources?”
Read that again. Farmers get the methane lecture. Commissioners get blamed for letting employers and data centers use water. Catawba’s agricultural families are cast as climate villains. The industrial growth that pays taxes and payrolls is cast as the real environmental crime.
He shared a climate letter item from a regional newspaper under that rant. Catawba First News is not naming that outlet; the quotes above are Alden’s own words on his public Facebook page.
Rural county, urban talking points
Catawba County is not a coastal faculty lounge. It is a place where farm families still work land, where livestock is not a hypothetical, and where voters just watched billions in manufacturing and data-center investment reshape the tax base. Alden’s post imports national climate hysterics into a local commissioner race and aims them at the people who raise animals for a living.
Voters already saw him on Facebook Reels asking who wants to be his getaway driver if he went to Charlotte to start “good trouble” with ICE — and boasting he has bail money. Now they get the climate lecture for the barns.
First the getaway driver. Now the methane sermon. Catawba farmers can decide whether they want that voice on the board that sets their tax rates and land-use fights.
Catawba First News asked Alden’s campaign for comment. This story will be updated if he answers.
Earlier coverage: Alden’s ICE “getaway driver” video · Prysmian Claremont groundbreaking · Corning, Meta, and Microsoft
