All the Climate News
A new report questions whether the 358 US cities that pledged to meet Kyoto's targets will be successful. That's a fine question, but it's perhaps easy to misconstrue as an implicit criticism that the promises were meaningless.
There is every reason to think that the cities can meet the targets. (And, heck, the pledge is only 18 months old!) Portland, in fact, is already well on its way.
What the report should serve to highlight is that:
- Reducing emissions requires a real plan with real teeth. (Seattle--the pledge's founding city--has a good start on this.)
- Cities are working against tough odds. Most cities have very little control over their major sources of emissions--they're laced with state and federal roads, they have limited authority to tax or regulate consumer carbon, and they mostly don't have control over utilities, just to name a very few obstacles. City climate pledges are great, but they really need to be supported at the state and federal level to work properly.
Story in the Seattle P-I.
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Measure 37 To Oregonians: "Shut Up"
You see, this is what I was talking about.
From today's Oregonian:
The Clackamas County Board of Commissioners decided Tuesday to speed the processing of claims made under Oregon's Measure 37 property rights law by preventing residents from testifying about filings. The commissioners will approve valid Measure 37 claims without question or public comment.
The Commissioner's callousness to public sentiment is not because they're die-hard "property rights" activists. It's because they simply cannot afford the time and money even to allow hearings for all the changes to land use laws that have been proposed. And the Commissioners are worried that if they don't get busy waiving the laws -- laws created by democratic means -- that taxpayers will get stuck having to compensate tens of millions of dollars worth of claims.
Pay or waive schemes like Measure 37 are a dagger at the heart of basic democratic institutions like local government. They are much less about property and planning than they are about silencing communities.
Residents of California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, and Washington -- states that rejected, or legally invalidated, Measure 37 copycats last fall -- should breath a deep sigh of relief. Residents of Arizona should hire lawyers.
