Coldstream's Confessional

Transparency in government is a sham.
Especially in B.C.
Especially in local governments like the District of Coldstream.

But the District of Coldstream has now gone to confession, and will be absolved of its sins.
Its sins against Mother Earth.

A short news "story"--and that term is used very loosely--in Vernon's Morning Star on February 13th was entitled "Coldstream hits carbon target."

They're hitting something, but it's not climate action.
Apparently thrilled "that we have reached this point," a gushing Mayor Jim Garlick, added "(we) will continue to seek new initiatives for the betterment of our community."

In talking to residents, one thing's abundantly clear.
Residents don't care.
All that's clear is that our Mayor has rung the bullshit meter again.

Because residents can't afford solar panels on their roofs.
They're too tapped out by unreasonable property taxes, burgeoning fees and ridiculously-inflated water charges, with huge increases still to come.

Reducing greenhouse gases.  Carbon footprint.
It's not local government's commitment to resurrecting the quasi-failed Kyoto Accord.
It's simply to assuage guilt...our sins against Mother Earth.
Right here in Coldstream.

To not feel so guilty.

Local governments are simply spending our money to kiss up to senior bureaucrats in Victoria, whose plan this is.  Under the guise of thinking globally, acting locally, the province of B.C. is ensuring it becomes another California...broke and flailing in the wind, desperate for cash.
Right along with its municipalities and cities.

Complying with Victoria's rules is the only way municipalities can access additional funding for projects (also spearheaded by senior bureaucrats) that are over and above residents' abilities to pay...but Victoria's money comes from us too.

It appears that Maurice Strong has finally gotten his way.
An advocate of the collapse of sinful Western economies, he continues to live in China.
Good place for that treasonous traitor.

Back to Coldstream's solar panels.
We'd all love to have them, but affordability is the issue.
So we're supposed to feel good every time we drive (*grin*) past our municipal hall complex because they have them.  And we paid for them.

Of 188 municipalities/towns in B.C., 180 have signed the Climate Action Charter, and Coldstream is one that signed onto the plan devised back in 2008.

Carbon offsetting is a myth, and its cons seldom see the light of day.
Because you simply end up purchasing new manufactured stuff to replace old manufactured stuff.
But Coldstream has bought it, hook line and sinker.

Some of the "initiatives" it undertook--because like everyone else, Coldstream was unable to completely reduce its carbon footprint--were to purchase a hybrid vehicle (yes, that had to be produced in a steel manufacturing facility), green infrastructure "action" plans (whatever the hell that is!), and so on...

So where is there transparency?
How much did Coldstream pay...and to whom...for carbon offsets?
Did Coldstream's bureaucrats show our elected officials the pros and cons of carbon trading/purchasing carbon offsets?

Did bureaucrats suggest to our elected officials that--instead of physically attending myriad meetings--a tangible (and common sense) carbon-reduction benefit would be to participate via video conferencing?  Just how much networking is physically lost if three elected officials don't attend the annual UBCM (Union of B.C. Municipalities) meetings in Victoria?  None at all.

But they still fly--or drive--to meetings.
Lots of meetings.
All that hobnobbing and airplane-flying and hotel-staying and restaurant-eating is a worthy sin for our elected officials.

The news article closes with "Council adopted a tax revitalization program to support sustainability."
Yup, we know taxes are being revitalized.
And who--or what--is being sustained?

Taxes certainly have a new life, a new vigor.
To the detriment of everything else that could have.

"Carbon offsets is the new derivative," says Kia disapprovingly.
 ...and just as distasteful. 

This Democracy...

Feeling guilty about global warming yet?

Reprint of an article by Mischa Popoff that appeared in Dec.09 issue of Okanagan Business Examiner

World leaders will soon meet in Copenhagen to take another crack at getting between you and a hot shower. If global warming science makes you feel guilty for keeping your home at room temperature and driving a car to work, fret not; it’s not science.

The bugbear of global warming began as a shameless political gambit. Maurice Strong, a Canadian living in China, wanted us to feel very guilty for our standard of living in the West so he worked with the United Nations to organize the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro that laid the groundwork for the Kyoto Protocol of 1997.

Here are Strong’s words from before the summit:
“What if a small group of world leaders were to conclude that the principal risk to the Earth comes from the actions of rich countries? ...So, in order to save the planet, the group decides: Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?”

Instead of raising living standards in poor nations, the efficiency of Western economies would be undermined through cap-and-trade schemes and carbon taxation.

Still feel guilty?

During President Bill Clinton’s second term, the United States Senate voted unanimously to reject Kyoto on a motion made by a senior Democratic Senator to reject all such treaties in perpetuity. Canadians meanwhile have a hard time remembering the Canadian vote on Kyoto. I’ll come back to that.

We’re told the evil oil lobby killed Kyoto down south. Think about that for a second. A second-term Democrat in the White House with an idealogical environmentalist as his vice president, none other than Al Gore, and we’re supposed to believe oil companies killed Kyoto? It’s more likely the Democrats just didn’t feel guilty.

Guess where all the CO2 trapped in fossil fuels comes from? That’s right, the earth’s atmosphere, which once held ten times more CO2. Any farmer can tell you that increasing CO2 levels boosts agricultural yields; scientists estimate 15% of the earth’s population exists thanks to rising CO2 in the last century. (You’re supposed to feel guilty about that.)

The atmosphere stopped warming in 1998 in spite of rising CO2. In fact in 2005 the much-ballyhooed “hockey-stick graph”, which Al Gore claims shows we’re living in the warmest period ever, was shown to produce its hockey-stick shape even if random data were used. Now who’s guilty?

What if all computer models used to support Strong and Gore’s doomsday scenario were rigged? Surely the UN would never go along with something like that. Well yeah, they did.

Then it emerged that temperature records themselves are skewed because cities are naturally warmer than surrounding landscapes. Temperatures rise as cities grow, but (oops!) the UN’s scientific panel failed to take that into account.

Strong and Gore will never debate global warming. It’s more expedient to pitch this social-engineering agenda as a good versus evil battle that any elementary school kid can understand, or be brainwashed by, which brings us back to how Canada came to be a signatory to Kyoto.

Clinton and Gore stood by while ltheir Democratic allies united with Republicans to kill Kyoto. But what about the vote in Canada’s Parliament? Was it close? Do you remember?

There was no vote in Canada. Jean Chretien ratified the Kyoto Protocol at a brief ceremony in his office in 2002. That’s right ... in his office. Preston Manning and his Reform caucus criticized Chretien, but the media let him get away with it and has badgered the right ever since for not drinking Strong and Gore’s suicidal cool aid.

Forget elected members of Parliament. Never mind Chretien’s own cabinet or David Anderson, Canada’s longest serving Environment Minister, who was not even consulted. One man, a man who happens to be chums with Strong, signed us all up to do our part to bring about the collapse of industrialized civilization.

Go ahead and have a hot shower, keep your house at room temperature all year long and drive to your heart’s content. Guilt and Copenhagen are for losers.

Mischa Popoff is a freelance political writer with a bachelor’s degree in history.

So can we go for drives again?" begs Kia.