The town I live in, Chico, CA is sometimes known as “Berkeley North” due to the liberal influence of Chico State University (CSUC). In this case, CSUC’s sustainability cabal, led by Professor Mark Stemen and Mayor Ann Schwab, has snookered our town into passing a “Climate Action Plan”.
Last Tuesday, our city council (who’s been deep in the red financially) approved by a 6 to 1 vote, the “Climate Action Plan” (CAP) from the “Sustainability Task Force”. It’s quite the hoot, because as I point out, they could buy “carbon indulgences”, for less than the cost of the “studies” money, and be done with it rather than continue to waste everybody’s time and effort. But in my opinion, the CAP really isn’t about results, it is about a continued agenda and public funds being used to support that agenda.
Here’s the story on it:
Full story here
Here’s what went down in discussion:
But Councilor Larry Wahl contested whether a Climate Action Plan, or its subsequent directives, would produce any “tangible benefit” to Chico.
“I do not literally see what this will accomplish … Will the sky be bluer? Will anything be prettier?” Wahl asked.
Holcombe said he didn’t want the city to take the chance that it wouldn’t.
“Nature is not waiting and certainly I don’t want the city of Chico to wait,” Holcombe said.
The rest of the council supported Holcombe.
By a 6-1 vote with Wahl dissenting, the council directed the creation of a Climate Action Plan, simultaneously approving a number of actions to be implemented in the first phase of the plan.
Here’s the Climate Action Plan (PDF) as it was approved that night. You’ll find it starting on page 80 of the meeting agenda. The Enterprise Record wrote a scathing editorial on it:
Full editorial here.
I had identified the same issues, but took it a step further with my letter to the editor I sent, citing what I recently discovered about the Chicago Climate Exchange:
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Dear Editor:
Regarding the recently passed city “Climate Action Plan,” one good idea is the installation of LED street lighting. While it won’t do much to offset carbon dioxide (since power plants program for lower idle loads at night) it will save money due to increased power efficiency. Anything minimizing expense and waste is a good thing for our spend-happy city government.
Besides this misguided but fiscally sensible idea, I note this in the Climate Action Plan: “Carbon Offsets Goal 1: Purchase Carbon Offsets Where Cost Effective.”
Since Team Schwab seems determined to waste money on this, I’ll point out three things:
1. Carbon offset trading in the USA is essentially dead. Even Sen. Harry Reid admits this. The Senate failed to pass cap and trade.
2. If they must waste money, don’t wait, do it now, because carbon offsets at the Chicago Climate Exchange are going for the bargain price of 5 cents per ton, down from the heyday highs of $7.50 per ton. See www.chicagoclimatex.com.
A bag of charcoal briquettes is worth more right now.
3. The plan said Chico emits 516,000 tons of carbon. At that price, we can offset the whole town for $25,800, far less than the cost of the actual city “Climate Plan.”
Maybe the council should buy boatloads of carbon credits at 5 cents per ton then resell it to the clueless Europeans trading carbon at nearly $20 per ton (see www.ecx.eu).
Yeah, that’s the ticket out of our city financial crisis.
Anthony Watts,
Chico CA
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Here’s the price today:
Waste money now, or later? That is the question.
For the record, I like LED lighting, and I put my money where my mouth is.
My view of carbon offsets? The City of Chico could buy them here, save our public funds, and they’d be just as effective. In fact, if they print them on this paper, the 69 cents a sheet paper would actually be worth more than the 5 cents per ton of carbon they “offset”.
Such a deal, sounds just like a job for our city government.
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UPDATE: I’ve added the PowerPoint presentation given at the City Council Meeting which you can download here: CityCouncil9-7
“Maybe the council should buy boatloads of carbon credits at 5 cents per ton then resell it to the clueless Europeans trading carbon at nearly $20 per ton (see http://www.ecx.eu).”
Won’t the EU complain about Carbon Credit dumping if your proposal takes place?
[REPLY – Dump?! Sir, we do not dump. We “sell abroad at a loss in defense of the national interest”. ~ Evan]
Let me guess, when somebody in the US buys a “carbon credit,” some foreign country benefits?
[And an angel gets his wings. (Probably some dang foreigner.) ~ Evan]
Here (literally) is the money quote from the article:
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But the plan itself comes with a price tag, with Herman saying the city has already spent approximately $10,000 in grant funding on developing the plan up until this point.
She estimated the plan would cost an additional $30,000 , noting that those costs could be covered by the city’s Energy Conservation and Efficiency Block Grant funds. She noted that sum does not include her staff time to work with the Sustainability Task Force.
Regardless of the costs, however, Chico resident Karen Laslo said funding the plan is well worth the benefits it will provide.
“I don’t think the Climate Action Plan is much of a sacrifice,” Laslo said. “It’s the least we can do.”
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In the end, it’s all about the Climate Ca$h…which in this case ends up being your tax money.
And I wonder how many poor and indigent people in the city could have been fed using the $40,000+?
If they bother to post your letter , I’d love to read the responses .
We’ve gone from the old economy to the new economy, and now to the carbon economy.
Anyone still interested in the “free” economy?
If US Carbon Credits were accepted in Europe, they wouldn’t trade for 5 cent. I don’t say they’re bad or something, it’s just that you seem to have an oversupply of them.
It is unfortunate that we can’t keep the politicians in Washington equally busy with such nonsense – then they would not have time to do real harm to the country.
It would be instructive to see where Chico’s $70,000 came from and trace its path back to and around the area. Taxes and fees come in to the city budget. Out go dollars to a professor’s salary, some to students with clipboards, some to University overhead, paper, laptops, and so on. One could make an input-output table (likely only another $5,000 project) to track all the $$ going round-and-round. Two lines in the table I would want to look at are “who benefits” and “leakages-out-of-Chico.”
Anthony pulled the last item on an extensive list of 83 possible actions, and made it appear this was part of the current discussion, which it is not.
The ER editorial is far from scathing, and it asked the same question I did, where is the action?
I know you do not believe in AGW. I do, and I am happy to debate that in a community forum.
In the meantime, I simply ask that you quit being purposefully deceptive. It is fine for you own blog, but it is a disservice to our community.
REPLY: Mark, wow, a new speed record for you showing up here after publication. Ah and we have the obligatory “judgment from on high”. You may think I’m “purposely deceptive” but I’m not wasting public money on “studies”. Point out anything in my letter that is not factual. You can in fact buy offsets at the Chicago Exchange for less than the cost of the city funded studies.
And tell me Mark, with a 250 word limit in the Newspaper, how could I cover “83 possible actions”. I picked two, one I like, one I don’t. Who’s being “purposely deceptive” now?
And I do believe in AGW, I just don’t believe it’s much of a problem.
see the CO2 saturation curve here
I’d like to add this graph showing CO2′s temperature response to supplement the one Doug Hoffman cites from IPCC AR4. here we see that we are indeed pretty close to saturation of the response.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/co2_temperature_curve_saturation.png?w=510&h=414
The “blue fuzz” represents measured global CO2 increases in our modern times.
see Dr. John Christy’s finding on irrigation here http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/12/christy-on-irrigation-and-regional-temperature-effects/
then there’s UHI, and a whole host of other things. But you don’t want to look at those.
– Anthony
I would argument with this one:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/christy_tmax_mtns-valley-foothills.png
Anthony, the insanity is coast to coast. See my recent post about the guy being sued by the County for growing too much food (in Tips&Notes).
[REPLY – That’ll teach you to beat your sword into a ploughshare! ~ Evan]
I hope the councillors have traded their cars for bicycles. However I’ll bet like most in power, they are following Al Gore’s example of excessive consumption.
Qué te pasa Chico, estás loco?(what’s the matter with you Chico, are you crazy?)
I noticed that the editorial mentioned that the CSU inventory indicated most of the emissions were due to vehicles. Did anyone check their figures? Don’t they use electricity in Chino? How about construction, making concrete creates a lot of CO2.
Funny, in a sick and pathetic sort of way………..
It looks like the word “carbon” has been officially redefined to mean “carbon dioxide.” What word shall we use when referring to element 6? Wolfram? Luminiferous aether?
This carbon-based life form would like to know.
Ditto to P Walker. Please update and post/link us to any responses to your letter.
Mark says:
September 13, 2010 at 1:21 pm
So is Mark on the receiving end of the Chico Climate Ca$h?? I didn’t realize the price tag was already up to $70,000…
REPLY: We’ll he’s here, why not ask him? Hey Mark, how much of that went to you or to your department at Chico State? – Anthony
“I note this in the Climate Action Plan: “Carbon Offsets Goal 1: Purchase Carbon Offsets Where Cost Effective.””
The LED street lights are in Phase One of the Climate Action Plan.
Carbon Offsets are on a separate list of potential actions ‘to be considered.’
For someone who makes their fame in minutia, I am surprised you do not read entire documents before you start belittling people.
And I just happened to be reading the local paper when your blog popped up. Lucky me.
REPLY: Yet the whole report was presented for approval that night. And, the section on Carbon Offsets is in fact part of the report submitted, considered, and voted on that night. So citing from the whole report is in fact fair game. Public discussion and voting can’t be limited to just a part of a report presented to the city council, it’s all or nothing, unless of course you want a Brown Act violation.
If the report had not mentioned the Carbon Offsets, or only presented phase 1, and nothing from the other phases at all, then you’d in fact have an actual argument. As it stands you do not. Sorry.
– Anthony
I’m sorry Anthony but Chico can’t be Northern Berkley. Eugene, OR has owned that title for way to long already.
Drunk with power and beliefs the council lurches on. No purpose but to spend taxpayers monies while California unemployment sits at 12% and a real possibility of California not able to pay their debt obligations. City after city facing bankruptcies while council clowns run fools errands for Al Gore. Ah yes think of the children, will they have jobs to pay for the councils games?
I hate to see Chico City Council waste money — so I offer a solution to the study and the plan.
Go to the Ontario Site, copy all the plans under publications and just copy the plan. The information is wrong, out of date and misleading. It seems to be a perfect fit.
see here for example…
http://www.ene.gov.on.ca/en/publications/air/index.php#9b
Take your pick. We even have studies based on 1990’s data predicting disasters and heatwaves over the last five years. The fact that the predictions were wrong should not devalue the studies for the use intended.
Your odds of stopping this are just about zero — so I thought I would offer cost mitigation. 🙂
one ten thousandth of total emissions. And how much are they planning to reduce this total emissions amount?
It appears that Chico has some 60000 inhabitants and the state university- who carried out the Co2 audit is one of the largest institutions in town. Taking into account deliveries, travel to and from the Univesty, building etc I would say that it is probably one of the largest Co2 emmitters in town, so its a bit ironic they got paid for doing the inventory.
Tonyb
I have not received a single cent for my work, nor has my department.
Thirty thousand went to pay the researchers who gathered the data for the greenhouse gas inventory I co-authored.
Ten thousand went to pay two interns who worked at the city.
The remaining $30,000 has yet to be allocated
REPLY: Thanks for that info Mark – Anthony