Blazemedia published a story with the following headline:
Boston mayor bans ‘fossil fuels’ in new city-owned buildings to advance ‘racial and economic justice’
The article describes a stunning display of disconnected-from-reality policy making, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu recently announced a ban on fossil fuels in all new city-owned buildings. This new executive order, described as a bold step towards “racial and economic justice,” will supposedly expedite climate action, create jobs, and enhance the quality of life in the city. Oh, and all of this while having a good laugh at the principles of sound economic and infrastructural planning.
The press release detailing the executive order stated that it was aimed at “accelerating climate action by requiring that all new municipal buildings and major renovations operate without fossil fuels.” The ban extends to non-combustion usage in cooking, HVAC, and hot water apparatuses in all new buildings in the city. In other words, your basic conveniences just got a lot less convenient.
Mayor Wu claims that signs of “extreme heat, storms, and flooding” are pressing reminders of our need for urgent climate action. Her solution? Denying new buildings the most cost-effective and efficient energy sources we have. As she boldly stated,
“The benefits of embracing fossil fuel-free infrastructure in our City hold no boundary across industries and communities, and Boston will continue using every possible tool to build the green, clean, healthy, and prosperous future our city deserves.”
https://www.theblaze.com/news/boston-wu-bans-fossilfuels-govt
Someone should probably remind her about the merits of keeping the lights on and heating affordable.
But hold on, there’s more! In addition to the new buildings, the ordinance also sets ambitious emission standards for what are classified as “large existing buildings.” The aim is to have all municipal buildings achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. Isn’t it lovely when bureaucrats with zero background in energy production set arbitrary deadlines?
The chief architect of this fossil-fuel-free fantasy land is Oliver Sellers-Garcia, the city’s first “Green New Deal director.” The role was created, rather grandiosely, to ensure the city was aligning with the radical climate agenda first peddled by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2019. Sellers-Garcia’s mission, per his official remit, is to advance climate action strategies that address social, racial, and economic inequality. In simpler terms, use the climate as a pretext to push for some form of equitable utopia.
Sellers-Garcia shared some “wisdom” about this new directive, saying, “the most sustainable way to make a green building is not to start from scratch.”
The final decree from the mayor’s office is that all new capital investments must contribute to “the decarbonization of Boston’s building sector.” Because who cares about fiscal responsibility and efficient resource allocation when you can signal your virtue to the world?
This latest move from Boston’s city administration demonstrates a shocking disregard for the practical realities of urban infrastructure and energy needs. In their rush to embrace feel-good policies and appease the climate change alarmists, they seem to have forgotten the essential purpose of public buildings – to serve the community efficiently and effectively, not as a symbol of climate ideology. Let’s hope the residents of Boston enjoy their new, fossil fuel-free future. After all, they will be the ones footing the bill for this grand exercise in absurdity.
HT/Willie Soon
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I agree with those of you who think this is absolutely bonkers. But, people this disconnected from reality can not be reasoned with.
I hope that Boston implements these plans. They will be a total disaster and we will have the pleasure of telling them “I told you so”.
Then perhaps we will be able to reason with them.
“Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other.”
Edmund Burke, Letter i. On a Regicide Peace. Vol. v. p. 331.
When it doesn’t work she’ll just blame it on Trump.
Banning fossil fuels in new construction is basically (at least in areas where natural gas is readily available) an end run around way to curb construction. IMO they don’t want any new building – this is the way things are in California. What a great way to continue to drive up housing costs! And drive away business….
And clearly these kinds of clowns don’t think things thru. What about building owners (apartments, offices, etc) where said building desperately needs to have the HVAC system replaced? What happens when the owners are caught between doing the upgrade (with super expensive non FF equipment) and pricing rents so high as to drive out tenants? Or not doing the needed repairs and then incurring all of the problems and costs of trying to keep an aging system going? Either way, it’s a lose-lose situation for the property owner! I can see some buildings even being abandoned due to the owners inability to upgrade the HVAC and other systems within the framework of this new regulation.
But when they are talking about their buildings, they only want the best.
Do municipal, city-owned buildings somehow also mean “privately” owned buildings? I guess that is the case in the commune.
“And clearly these kinds of clowns don’t think things thru.”
If they hadn’t changed the grading system for kindergarten, she’d still be trying to put the round pegs into the square holes.
But luckily at this point probably only about 70% of economic activity in Boston is devoted to government. (vs 30% cannabis sales).
I think that the Mayor should show that she has some testosterone producing organs. Instead of the goal being 2050, 20 years after she has left office and therefore has no more skin in the game, she should stop the use of fossil fuels in 2025 for all government buildings and the homes of all government employees. This includes electricity produced from fossil fuels or imported from other states or Provinces.
Yeah, what is she waiting on? The world is about to end because CO2, it’s time to get cracking. The year 2050 will be much too late. Doesn’t she know the oceans and atmosphere are boiling! now because CO2?
I was an early supporter of advancement and equality for women having had a sister in the genius category ahead of me in school. More than half a dozen decades later, I’ve modified this view in one aspect – the political sphere.
There have been a number of admirable women heads of state, of course, who have taken the tough decisions needed to act in the best interests of their citizens: Golda Meier, Indira Gandhi, Margaret Thatcher, Sheikh Hasina (today’s PM of Bangladesh who told the WEF in Davos, Al Gore and Kerry her plan to continue to build coal fired plants to raise her people out of poverty).
Unfortunately, though, the very fine trait of nurturing and caregiving seems to be strong in most women, and in power, it manifests itself in a socialist bent. Women governors, mayors and other officials by and large tend toward nanniness governance.
Go all the way, Boston. Build without the use of fossil fuels or petroleum-derived products. In other words, build nothing.
I still say, if Boston wants renewable energy, let them build it there locally. They have plenty of windy high rise locations.
Just put a horizontal turbine above a vent from their parliament !
Excellent and remember to expand it aggressively. /sarc
And this from EIA.GOV website on Massachusetts’ electricity sources [2021]:
NatGas ~66%, “Renewables” 29% [mostly hydro & solar PV], no coal or nuclear (decommissioned their only nuke 2019), and < 1% oil (peaker facility).
https://www.eia.gov/state/analysis.php?sid=MA
And from the EIA note how self-sufficient they are:
“… in 2020 Massachusetts consumed almost three times as much electricity as it generated, and additional electricity was brought in over the regional grid.”
[but it didn’t say the type of regional e sources they rely on]
Clearly, Boston’s mayor is not smart enough to know when her chosen energy director is promoting a fantasy. Sad.
I grew up in a town known as Levittown.
Cookie-cutter houses based upon designs used in the original New York Levittown.
The houses had partial small windows with half screens. Nor were the windows abundant, so establishing cross breezes were often impossible.
Summers could be sweltering.
When I was about 14, I was on a Boy Scout 10 mile hike and came across a small store in a country farmhouse.
The items were in a large room with all of the windows open so the room was just as hot as the outside.
After purchasing some candy, I asked about a rest room. The ladies considered me and then let me into their main house to use the bathroom.
That part of of the farmhouse was deliciously cool. Cool enough to send a chill through my sweat soaked clothing.
No air conditioning, at all.
I asked how they kept it so cool.
The ladies were delighted and showed me how they used the full length windows with full length screens to capture overnight coolness.
During the day, those windows were sealed shut.
Once the evening started cooling, they would open the upstairs windows at the top of the windows so heat could escape.
They would open the downstairs windows, but only the bottom half of the window so cool air would enter.
When all windows were open properly, you can feel the cross breeze immediately.
In the morning, one shuts all of the windows and close drapes, especially drapes on the sunny side of the house.
Then movement in/out of the house is kept to a minimum.
Every older house, pre A/C and heat pump manufacture, I’ve lived in had abundant tall windows.
I didn’t own an A/C or heat pump until I moved to New Orleans.
Most newer housing and business buildings have minimal windows and very few windows that open.
Without A/C, it is very difficult to work or live in modern buildings during the summer.
“Not to start from scratch”, I take that to mean existing and new buildings will be unchanged except for the ridiculous rule.
Which means none of those building have sufficient ventilation for Sellers-Garcia and Wu’s changes.
Which also means that thanks to politician dimwittedness, Boston may finally achieve excessive summer deaths from heat.
Sells-Garcia and Wu should be charged with murder when that happens.
This is like our new mayor of calgary elected in oct 2021, on day 1 she declared a climate emergency.
On day 2 she welcomed a new low cost airline to the city, low cost flights being the worst possible contributor to emissions.
So stupid she can’t even grasp the contradiction.
A good progressive.
What will she build with? Grass.
Boston used to be known for The Big Dig which was an utter fiasco. Now this. I guess Boston likes being known for utter fiascos.
And here we have THE example to poke a GIGANTIC hole in that stereotype about Asians being smart.
Well that’s just super. Does she mean during the construction phase as well?
Hahahahahaha! The utter stupidity of this! What is wrong with these people? Are they actually insane? And who the heck elected this idiot to power? Is the entire populace mad?
Real good questions that could be applied to many other radical Democrat cities and States, too.
Why are they blind to the true situation? The truth is out there, with regard to human-caused climate change and everything else, but they can’t see it.
Humans are very prone to fooling themselves. They will believe what they want to believe and will reject or accept facts depending on whether those facts support their belief system.
We all do it. We should all try to guard against doing it. It’s easier said than done. And obviously, some people are not successful at guarding against it.
Well, they’re Democrats, so…
From the article: “This latest move from Boston’s city administration demonstrates a shocking disregard for the practical realities of urban infrastructure and energy needs. In their rush to embrace feel-good policies and appease the climate change alarmists, they seem to have forgotten the essential purpose of public buildings – to serve the community efficiently and effectively, not as a symbol of climate ideology.”
Texas, here we come!
Boston builders and residents will be moving to the free States of Texas and Florida, and the others in the southern (Red) U.S.
Our leaders on the left are completely divorced from reality. I’m sure glad I don’t live in one of their cities.
In my State, the use of gasoline and natural gas are encouraged. No pandemic shutdowns. No mask mandates. Freedom !!!
This is the capital city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that continually brags about being the “best-educated state.” Haaahvaahd, et alia.
So the allegedly smartest people in the country, possibly the universe, are rejecting almost everything we’ve learned since the European Renaissance, in order to fix something that ain’t broke, by replacing physics, chemistry, biology, and math with superstition.
If this is what smarties do, imagine what stupid people are doing.
Will all the construction companies form a convoy to leave Boston for somewhere not run by a moron?