| Sourced From |
Without much fanfare Boulder’s city council approved maxing out the amount collected on your Climate Action Plan tax. It’s anticipated that an additional $810,000 will help achieve the CAP goals that so far haven’t proven to be all that achievable. Raising the tax is consistent with local political dogma that equates successful government programs being related to how much tax money is collected and redistributed.
This new pot of dough will be spent in a variety of entirely predictable ways. First and foremost, the climate action planners say they are going to develop a “robust model for social mobilization.” It sounds like a form of progressive community organizing that was successful for at least one recent Presidential aspirant. Its socially mobilized purpose is to needed to generate “community engagement and excitement.” Whoopee! A Social Mobilization Technical Team will then help hire a bunch of team members who will in turn consisting of “two techs and a truck.”
The teams will “blanket the community” by going door-to-door selling citizens on the wonders of conserving energy and offer all kinds of incentives to caulk, seal, insulate or weather strip their way into carbon-reduction nirvana. Perhaps if the teams aren’t successful convincing people about the marvels of energy conservation they could also sell Girl Scout cookies, encyclopedias, or aluminum siding.
Seriously, there’s nothing wrong with trying to get more people to be more energy conscious. The one thing that really works when it comes to conserving is either when energy prices rise dramatically or when doing something doesn’t cost anything. The newly endowed program will largely be voluntary except that the council will also use its powers of persuasion. The city can’t force individual homeowners into doing anything except for those unfortunates who rent their properties to others. Landlords will likely be required to participate in this “voluntary” climate action plan because they need to obtain city rental licenses.
There are a few other quirks with this new social mobilization effort that need to be sorted out. One involves propping up Boulder’s Eco-Pass effort with money from the additional CAP tax revenues. A convoluted theory holds that in trying to reduce 116,000 million tons of CO2 a year from auto emissions, Boulder needs to eliminate 100,000 vehicle miles traveled per day. That’s not likely to happen unless the socially mobilized neighborhood teams slash the tires of a few thousand cars every day while they sell weather stripping.
Another curious part of the program involves bicycles. The city wants $500,000 of Obama’s massive stimulus giveaway program so a few of those dollars can end up paying for a new “bike share” effort. A bunch of bikes are destined to be spread around hither and yon so anyone can borrow a bike to do whatever. It’s similar the Green Bike Program that failed miserably decades ago. Most of those bikes were stolen or destroyed. Why anyone believes any similar program will actually succeed is part of the dreamland progressives live in where they actually believe in such nonsense along with the tooth fairy.
Yet another questionable part of the CAP is its six-year goal of “decarbonizing” the city’s mix of fuels so that by 2015 80 percent will come from “renewables.” Right now solar energy sources provide less than 1 percent of our electric energy although it’s supposed to grow to be 25 percent by 2015. Wind somehow manages to currently produce around 15 percent of our electric energy and is supposed to more than double by 2015. Some mysterious and undefined power source (nuclear perhaps?) is supposed to jump from zero to 20 percent by 2015.
These same true believers also predict that in 2015 pigs will fly.
By Bob Greelee
Bob Greenlee was a member of Boulder’s City Council for 16 years and served his last 2 years as mayor. Write him at: [email protected]
Related posts: