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
Anthony,
Beautifully done. Such Entertainment. Unconcionable waste of tax dollars, but well skewered.
Hey Mark……can’t argue the message so you attack the messanger. How typical of the loony left. Look around buddy; your city, county and state does not have one dollar to spare. Businesses are fleeing in droves because of this kind of regulatory stupidity.
You golden-staters out there had better clean house, and fast before you go bankrupt. You need to start with that wack-job Barbara Boxer and work your way down from there.
If Mark is so convinced, why not have him submit his explaination here why he believes AGW is an issue? I’m dying to know why anyone would still believe it now.
REPLY: Professor Mark Stemen is welcome to submit a guest post here at any time. Since he said earlier in the thread that:
And since this is a worldwide public forum, I’m sure he’ll accept.
I’ll even overlook his childish name calling of me on another forum. “Agony Watts”
Way to stay classy professor Stemen, but you are welcome to do a guest post here. – Anthony
If I was just a little more reckless and younger, I probably would have started knocking out lights around people who believe in agw…
They believe in returning to the dark at night, so it makes sense from someone who wants to commit vandalism..
Is it truly a crime if the person who is vicimized believes that you are saving the world by doing it? The philosophical question of the day to be added to the
professor question of the day: “how many hours do you work per week on the tax-payer dime”
Remember, you are supposed to work at a university to teach children, are you doing that or are you using tax-payer funded monies to influence political decisions?
Pamela Gray says:
“Mark, if you co-authored the paper and the researchers were paid for their work, were they paid directly by the city council or through the University, and did you co-author as a private citizen or as a member of the University? I ask this because, putting out is quite the big deal at Universities. Publish or perish. You keep your job because you publish, and because you publish you reap money awards in the future. You may not have had the audit money put in your department’s account, but having a publishing record related to CO2 garners more grants of any kind in the future. And you know that.”
Cui bono indeed, which makes Mark hardly a disinterested person with nothing to gain from all of this.
In Canada, the Suzuki greens have been elected under others list in municipal elections. They too are pushing those climate action plans, trying to subvert the democratic vote: the greens only were 8% at the latest BC provincial election, a Canadian province that is the base of the Suzuki Foundation and Desmogblog founder.
This is eco-totalitarism. DANGER!!!
erik sloneker says:
September 13, 2010 at 3:37 pm
ummm…. they’re already bankrupt. The state is sending IOUs in place of payment. They’re just waiting for the pension system to bring final catastrophic collapse.
Sorry, I live too far south to know the players in Chico. But maybe someone can enlighten me. Who is Holcombe? Can’t find an id anywhere.
John in Azusa
REPLY: Andy Holcombe, the same councilor who thinks having a coop pot warehouse in town is a good idea.
Huge indoor medical marijuana grow proposed at Chico airport
http://www.chicoer.com/ci_15910557
From the story:
But Mark thinks I’m the one hurting the town’s image. – Anthony
Speaking of Money: Has anyone in Chico examined the salaries of the city council and administrators. I noted on the national news that the populace of one California city recently protested the outrageous salaries of its city employees and their associated retirement plans.
REPLY: Our local newspaper published them online:
This reminds me of the UK about 20/30 years ago when lots of left-wing councils patted themselves on the back and thought they were achieving something by declaring their little bit of the world a ‘Nuclear Free Zone’. It never seemed to occur to them that they stand or fall at the next election depending on whether they get the rubbish collected on time.
How about suggesting to these councils that they make their little piece of the world a ‘Carbon Free Zone’. I’m sure some of them would go for it. After all they did elect the Terminator as Governor.
REPLY: Chico is already one of those “nuclear free zones” they actually passed a law to that effect. I’m sure they’ll go for “carbon free” zone. Mark can make it happen. – Anthony
I find it somewhat amazing that we strangely ‘expect’ local councilors and local government officials to be able to get their heads around the complexities and hype around the AGW business. An expert with the right connections will be very able to push through an agenda in this space. Especially when local councils usually have a terrible record on consistent fiscal responsible behavior. I’ll give you an example from the UK:
“There is a regional council in Dorset a few years back that wanted to make their council tax statement delivery more cost effective; they had staff printing out the statements and then by hand putting the statements in envelopes, sealing them, franking them, and then bagging them for postal pick up. This occurred monthly. Now a machine was found which does all of this in one flow, total cost 100,000 GBP. It was bought and installed. Several months went by and one inquisitive councilor put a question in full council on how well the machine was doing – it turned out it never got used as training was not provided on how to use it…”
The morals of this story are that:
– councils are quite capable to spend tax payers money that does nothing expect preserve the status quo or extend the ’empire’ without any sense of guilt
– it just takes one motivated and inquisitive councilor to upset the apple cart.
Basically if you really want to upset the apple cart, stand to be a local councilor 🙂
I will try to answer the questions:
I contracted with the City through our Research Foundation to prepare a Greenhouse Gas Inventory. I did not receive pay, nor is the report considered a publication for tenure/promotion purposes. I am not aware of any benefit for the University either, since this was a city report.
Sorry to disappoint, but I did the report because it needed to be done; just like Anthony did the Stevenson survey. If you think I have other reasons, you must think the same of Anthony.
And Anthony, I forgot about your hearing. Sorry. I guess we will never know what would have been. Maybe you can contribute something in writing. Anything would be better than your drive by assaults on Ann Schwab.
REPLY: You mean “drive by assaults” like this?
As I offered up thread, both Mayor Schwab and you are welcome to guest post here. The only requirement is that you’ll have to publish your full name with your words.
– Anthony
It’s just these type of actions that keeps business out of California, and in particular in towns like Chico. They’ll meet zero emissions, because no jobs = no people.
REPLY: Chico is already one of those “nuclear free zones” they actually passed a law to that effect. – Anthony
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Anthony, does that also apply to incoming?
and
Does Professor Elitist Mark know that this is a community forum?
and he just made a total jackass out of himself for the whole world to see?
If towns like Chico buy carbon credits the price won’t stay 0.05c for long. Anthony – you may have breathed life back into a dying market with this post.
Anthony
This has got to be a spoof – there’s no way this Mark guy can be real.
Anyhow, no one wastes money like local government can.
And does your research foundation receive grants or did they give a grant to the council for the study?
“It’s not about money,” Stemen said. “It’s about priorities.”
Face meet palm. It’s always about the money.
But that’s a reality that Gang Green will never admit to.
“It is fine for you own blog, but it is a disservice to our community.”
One might argue that blowing tens of thousands on such silliness is the real “disservice to our community”.
Anyhow, no one wastes money like local government can.
If only they wasted it! That would be a huge improvement.
Usually they make very effective use of it to destroy additional wealth and opportunity. If only they just dumped it in the ocean, we’d all be better off, and it would even serve to curb inflation.
Better yet, they should jump in themselves, which would be all the better for us and all the worse for the fishes.
This is beauty. Mark is upset it seems. that is fine. When a business or even a recruit for a company interviews in a town, they google news. Why would someone take a job in a town that is facing bankruptcy and strife? I remember a School superintendent interviewed in Oregon. The school district had made the news in attacking Scouts and ROTC. No way for a family to move there. How can they recruit business with an elitist green attitude?
Peter Miller says:
September 13, 2010 at 4:16 pm
Anthony
This has got to be a spoof
I don’t believe there is a venue large enough to hold all the people “like” Mark. And as for wasting money, I think we all know that dollar foolish penny wise is applied at all levels of government.
Mark says:
“I simply ask that you quit being purposefully deceptive.” and, “I will call you on your BS……and the original lie was sent in as a letter to the editor”
Anthony said, “Point out anything in my letter that is not factual.”
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Mark, Anthony is more than capable of holding his own, but I’ve got to point out that you’ve failed. You have used the words “lie” and “deceptive” also, the abbreviation “BS”. Anthony challenged you to show where he is not factual. You have failed to do so. You’ve also, by your own admission, have shown where the advocates of this policy have reaped financial rewards for the advocacy. I’m not sure how that is perceived in your part of the world, but where I’m from, it isn’t acceptable.
Moreover, if this act of lunacy was confined to simply the college and town, I’d say “So what? Let them down in their own cesspool of ethical rationalization and financial suicide(if you’re in a hole, quit digging.) But, cities and colleges receive financial help from both state and federal assistance, either directly or indirectly. Today, at the small electric cooperative I work at, almost 4%(unemployment is over twice that) of the membership is 2 or months behind on their bill payments. I can’t help but think there are other priorities we as a community of people can be addressing right now other than ways to spend public monies.
In summary, show the “lies” and quit encouraging needless expenditures. And start doing something more than advocating the lining of your institution’s pockets with frivolous quixotic ventures. You community, your state, your nation would be better off.
Thanks.
OT but looks like R Spencer’s ominous temp drop is starting
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/execute.csh?amsutemps
click on 600mb
If this persists the AGW has definitely had its last year of cred
When facts get in the way the AGW proponents try to resort to censorship.
Mark says
“…….I am not aware of any benefit for the University either, …….”——-Waaa??? But didn’t you just state, “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.”
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Or are these people from a different institution? I was to understand they were from your college. Did I misinterpret the exchange or were they not from CSUC?
Mark, I don’t like to pick on people when they are engaged with others, but come on man!