Guest essay by Eric Worrall
A post in The Conversation claims that government officials in red state administrations are sneaking in climate measures disguised as government efficiency drives and pollution mitigation initiatives.
Red state rural America is acting on climate change – without calling it climate change
Author: Rebecca J. Romsdahl
Professor of Environmental Science & Policy, University of North Dakota
February 22, 2017 1.08pm AEDT
President Donald Trump has the environmental community understandably concerned. He and members of his Cabinet have questioned the established science of climate change, and his choice to head the Environmental Protection Agency, former Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, has sued the EPA many times and regularly sided with the fossil fuel industry.
Even if the Trump administration withdraws from all international climate negotiations and reduces the EPA to bare bones, the effects of climate change are happening and will continue to build.
In response to real threats and public demand, cities across the United States and around the world are taking action to address climate change. We might think this is happening only in large, coastal cities that are threatened by sea-level rise or hurricanes, like Amsterdam or New York.
Research shows, however, that even in the fly-over red states of the U.S. Great Plains, local leaders in small- to medium-size communities are already grappling with the issue. Although their actions are not always couched in terms of addressing climate change, their strategies can provide insights into how to make progress on climate policy under a Trump administration.
…
The following quotes give a sense of their strategies.
“In terms of economic benefit & resource protection. This framing was deliberate to garner support from residents who did not agree with climate change.”
“We frame the initiative as: energy savings (=$ savings), as smart growth/good planning, and as common sense natural resource management. Climate change is only explicitly referenced in our Climate Protection Plan adopted in 2009. Most initiatives fall under the “sustainability” umbrella term.“
“We mask it with sustainability, we call it P3 (People, Planet, Prosperity)”
…
The abstract of the referenced study;
Planning for climate change across the US Great Plains: Concerns and insights from government decision-makers
While both international and national efforts are being made to assess climate change and mitigate effects, primary impacts will likely be regional. The US Great Plains region is home to a mosaic of unique ecosystems which are at risk from climate change. An exploratory survey of over 900 Great Plains government officials shows concerns for specific natural resources but not global climate change. Local government decision-makers are important sources of initiation for environmental policy; however, less than 20 % of jurisdictions surveyed have developed plans for adapting to or mitigating potential climate change impacts. The continental extremes of seasonal and annual climate variability of the Great Plains can mask the effects of global climate change and likely influences its’ residents lack of concern. The study findings indicate a need to reframe the discussion away from climate change skepticism, toward a focus on possible impacts within current resource management priorities such as drought, so that proactive planning can be addressed.
In my opinion this effort to justify political deception is obscene. Winning electoral office by deceiving voters undermines democracy – it debases the value of casting a vote.
Reframing also potentially leads to serious resource misallocation.
For example, in a deceptive regime of “reframing”, the parameters of civic works projects could be quietly padded, to cope with questionable projections of future climatic extremes which are not justified by the historical record.
If Mayors and other local government officials think future climate change is an issue, they should openly declare their concerns, and let voters decide on the merits of their plans, rather than hiding their true intentions behind a deceptive mask of “reframing”.
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Consider the source: Rebecca J. Romsdahl, Professor of Environmental Science & Policy, University of North Dakota.
Is that virtue signaling or an appeal to authority? Or just someone waving a Ph.D. in our faces?
“Is that virtue signaling or an appeal to authority?”
Oh, I think it is definitely virtue signaling.
I’m thinking about starting up a little business making flags and pennants with the words “Bask in My Virtue!” printed on them. I bet I could sell millions of them to the Loony Lefties out there! Josh ought to do a cartoon.
Every time you see a celebrity or politician shooting off their mouths about how terrible it is to be governed by Trump, imagine them standing there waving their “Bask in My Virtue” flag back and forth as they speak.
Does she have a mixed major, or a mixed-up major?
She just got back from the pipeline protest and didn’t have a lot of time to proof read. (Also guilty)
It’s UN Agenda 21 and ICLEI – International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives festering in your towns and cities:
http://www.democratsagainstunagenda21.com/iclei-when-they-say-local-they-mean-it.html
Unelected officials making “sustainability” regulations in your town/county.
No, the climate kooks are so crazy they think anything to do with energy, infrastructure or environment is all about “cliamte change”. Which is a nice opportunity to point out the illogical circular thinking involved in “climate change”. The intellectual thievery of the climate obsessed is breath taking. “Climate change” is a near meaningless term- the climate has changed since there has been a climate. They co-opted the term after their earlier marketing effort “global warming” failed. The central kernel of this entire social mania is why has it persisted in the face of failed predictions, exposed corruption, self dealing, rent seeking, obvious hysteria mongering, and vast sums of wasted money?
As long as the local politicians, voted in by local people, use local taxes to do their dirty work. Then it is down to the locals to sort it out.
All we can do is make sure the locals understand what is going on in their name.
I agree with you, Steve. If the locals want to blow their own money on something, that’s alright with me, no matter what they waste it on.
Rebecca needs to be challenged over her rdiiculous and scientifically nonsensical claim that droughts, etc are the result of global warming.
Sometimes progress is actually positive progress driven by development and rational response to risk. Although, I wouldn’t underestimate progressive corruption that is primarily driven by secular incentives.
Diversity is actually [class] diversity or judging people by the “color of their skin”, that denies the dignity of individual human lives.
“=” is congruence or selective exclusion.
Welfare is a smoothing function and profit-skimming mechanism (e.g. redistributive change), that sustains high-density population centers, suppresses the masses, and in the long-term is a first-order cause of spiritual destruction and dysfunction.
Social justice adventures are elective wars with delegated responsibility that are first-order causes of catastrophic anthropogenic immigration reform including refugee crises.
A baby, a human baby, is actually a baby, and not a colorful clump of cells delivered by a stork. The fantasy of spontaneous human conception or viability originates in the the twilight fringe (a.k.a. penumbra).
What other efforts to reframe, especially liberal departures from science and morality, have they undertaken?
My father used to tell me that he got me from Sears.
If the Leftwingers revealed their goals in plain English to the American public they would be hung by the heels from the nearest lamp post. PS I’m west of the Mississippi so I can say “hung”.
i agree with those who say that duplicity like this an old and ongoing practice among politicians – it’s futile to try to implant a conscience in politicians – it be better in the long term to train the citizenry to be smarter and less gullible
Same whine, new bottle.
(See what I did there?)
Max – magic. Marvellous.
Auto
State’s departments, counties, cities, and all their sub-agencies have had to respond to “global warming” infused requests or directives. Regardless of what needs done, say constructing a new traffic roundabout, indicating it will reduce “carbon” pollution has been a better justification than that the 4-way Stop intersection was beyond its ‘best-by’ date. A highway official would not omit this important “fact” and concede the X number of points to a more attentive proposer.
From the article: “however, less than 20 % of jurisdictions surveyed have developed plans for adapting to or mitigating potential climate change impacts.”
Which just goes to show how low climate change is on the agenda of most of the jurisdictions in the United States.
Hide the intention.
Hide the design!
Hide the Decline!
Then decline the FOIA.
As they say in Wikipedia: “citation needed.”
Climate changes. Always has. Always will.
A cool summer. A hot summer. A warm winter. A cold winter. (With an occasional “blistering summer” and “brutal winter” thrown in.) Nothing really new. Some of us have even lived long enough to have experienced all of them.
Some political climate scientist and politicians say Man has now caused what has always happened. And only they can stop it! They just need to be given more control over energy generation and which bathroom you can use. Or just “you”.
I know I don’t come across as the kind of individual to do this kind of thing but, trust me, I used to make my living through armed bank robbery. They used to call me ‘Tommy Gun Judd’. Now, I had an airtight defense that worked like a dream.
I always claimed that I was merely reframing the issue of currency allocation.
Statute of limitations expired?
Bill and Hillary hope so.
It could be opposite. The plans were ok, but in the spirit of time they were puffed up with some climate change. Now they just leave the climate change green wash and call it what it was. ??
There are lobbyist lies in 50 shades of grey and receptive elective officials for most of the shades.
And there might be receptive officials’ palms . . . .
Auto – not at all cynical.
Fly-over states are just as much in love with federal dollars for “energy efficiency” as blue states. Handouts are handouts. Call it “sustainable” if it gets the tax increases and locks people into choices—that’s the end goal. The end is all that counts.
Education on true energy efficiency is needed. Light bulbs changes do not save the planet, just make light bulbs cost $4.50 each. I watch the power company promote outright fiction on energy saving ideas. If people could do math and actually checked what household devices use how much electricity AND know what the cost of their energy per unit was, the deception would be immediately visible.
I’m not sure what deception you refer to (I can believe one exists, though), but I CAN tell you that I deliberately buy white goods with low ‘energy star’ ratings because they actualy WORK, unlike highly rated goods. We are being conned into paying the same for less electricity to do the same job less well, and it’s a crock!
The Greenies/Warmistas waste your money on climate-boondoggles and call them savings to lull you back to sleep. They frame their agenda to gain support from non-‘climate-change’-believing citizens.
They frame initiatives as energy savings based on fictitious nameplate figures. They call public waste of money ‘smart growth/good planning/sustainable’ and ‘resource management’.
‘Climate change’ and ‘Global Warming’ are off the menu and are never named. “Sustainability” is the big new term.
Do a search on “Environmental Management System”.
Lot’s of local areas have bought into it.
I had a link to its history but it now returns a blank.
It led back to, guess where? The UN.
The author has just discovered A@end5 toody one. Yeah, it was a motherhood type document with a terminal venom that seals the deal at a certain point. Takes away management of even farmers watering ponds and gets them to agree to not cut trees in the front 20 acres – then it becomes law. For an expert on how to use democratic institutions to convert to c0mmeehood Google: …
and not a shot was fired
see how a Czech commee called Jan Kozak used the democratic system to install its replacement. Amazon.com was selling the book for about $1.50 a few years ago until it caught on with millennials and now its gone up in price. Probably became a textbook at Harvard political science faculty and gave birth to the Occupy Wall Street and protests to demand an end to capitalism.
The research the above article linked to, is not research.
It does border on fake news.
Meaning that one in five cities, since most of the article is written about cities, responded that they have ‘plans’ for adapting or mitigating impacts.
It is likely, that Republican areas plan to ‘ignore’ climate change as their mitigation.
It is also likely that any ‘jurisdictions’ responding with actual plans for ‘clean energy’ have investors responding to the allure of free money via subsidies. i.e. if that jurisdiction doesn’t have cheap wood to chop up for pellets to sell to Euro-loons.
So, the fly over jurisdictions did respond, with yawns, “go away, you bother me.”, and noncommittal shrugs of the shoulder.
Yet, the researchers wrote what they, personally, believe is a positive spin on the Great Plains total lack of respect and consideration for alarmist science.
That leaves what is genuine across America in this research:
There are jurisdictions throughout the Great Plains.
When temperatures may reach 90+°F (32+°C), yet drop to near freezing during the night. Or reach 115+°F (46+°C) in summer while dropping -40°F ( -40°C) during the winter; residents are very unlikely to consider NASA/NOAA’s alarmist claims regarding a fraction of a degree rise, untoward at all.
Most of these people learn to read thermometers at a very early age. Claiming temperature accuracy to the hundredths is akin to crystal ball reading.
Interesting.
I’m a US citizen. Born and raised. I work in and for a large US city. I pay income tax to that city but I don’t live in that city. I can’t vote in that city’s elections.
Something doesn’t seem right about that.
I wonder how local politics would change if local income tax went to where one lived rather than where they worked?
Unfortunately, the law supports localities charging sales and income taxes on workers who can’t find jobs where they live.
Nor do they want to give any credit for people who were enticed to move nearby so they can work in the city; only to discover the big city wants a cut of the salaries.
Is this article seriously criticising local govts for energy efficiency / savings measures because they didn’t CALL them AGW policy??