Tonight I asked the Castle Rock Town Council to pass a resolution committing our community to the goals of the
U.S. Conference of Mayors Climate Protection Agreement.
The following is the statement I made in introducing this measure:
"
As everyone here knows, climate change is a clear and present danger to much about our planet that we love and, indeed, we depend upon for life itself."As documented by the recent final report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and by the unprecedented declaration by the world's climate scientists at the Bali conference, there is no longer any basis to doubt that human-caused greenhouse gas emissions are causing Earth's atmosphere to warm up.
"The consequences of this warming, which is already well underway, are ominous. They include:
* the likelihood that some low-lying island nations will be inundated by rising seas
* that famine will again become a scourge in large portions of the third world
* that many of the worlds' animal and plant species will be lost forever, and
* that there will be rising, even catastrophic, economic costs and personal suffering resulting from a less predictable, more tumultuous and more dangerous climate .
"The administration in Washington has turned a blind eye to global climate change, preferring instead to do the bidding of powerful industries that would prefer to continue the status quo no matter the cost we all pay by doing so.
"President Bush and Vice President Cheney even recently took the unprecedented step of denying California a waiver necessary to impose its own, tougher motor vehicle emission standards under the Clean Air Act.
"Some states are doing better than the deniers in the White House and elsewhere in Washington. Here in Colorado, we are fortunate to have a governor and a legislative majority committed to a more balanced energy policy and to changes in our state's laws aimed at lowering Coloradans' greenhouse gas footprint.
"The really good news, though, is that cities and towns all over the nation have banded together to act responsibly on this issue. More than 700 communities have recognized the moral and economic imperative of acting to slow and then reverse climate change. They have done this by ratifying the U.S. Conference of Mayors Climate Protection Agreement.
"All of you are familiar with that agreement, and so it is not my intent this evening to provide a detailed briefing on its provisions. Suffice to say, the Conference of Mayors Agreement represents a thoughtful, pragmatic, effective and broadly supported program for combating this awesomely important problem, which represents, along with the threat to our civilization posed by terrorism, the greatest challenge faced by humanity.
"I hope the Council will give serious consideration to adopting the Conference of Mayors agreement. Other communities in our state have either signed on or are considering doing so. I recognize that there are particular aspects of the agreement that may be appropriately modified to take account of our community's unique circumstances.
"In any case, however, the U.S. Conference of Mayors Climate Agreement represents a tested, politically feasible, economically realistic, and environmentally responsible way of taking our place among American communities' efforts to confront the inconvenient truth that we are changing our planet, and much for the worse, with the status quo of a carbon-intensive, energy-wasting economy.
Thank you."
David Mitchem of the Castle Rock Economic Development Council, as well as local lawyer and GOP insider Jim Folkestad, argued against joining the agreement in public comments. They argued thatit would force Castle Rock to stop growing its population and even, in Mitchem's words, "
tell many residents to go live elsewhere."
Of course that is nonsense, plain and simple, as the Agreement does not speak to limiting growth or capping a community's population. It simply provides tools by which the environmental impacts of growth can be mitigated.
Councilman Doug Lehnen, meanwhile, argued that Castle Rock already does some things beneficial for the environment and therefore should not be too quick to do anything more. I can't say I'm surprised he took that view, but I was disappointed with his assertion that I argued the Town has done nothing. As readers can see from a review of the statement I offered, I said no such thing.
The Council will invite further public comment and hold a vote on the merits of my proposal at a future date.