Denver's New "Green" Plan

This story has been in the news for a little over a week now, but is starting to calm down a bit. In order to fight global warming, Mayor John Hickenlooper is working to reduce CO2 emissions by 4.4 million metric tons by the year 2020, the equivalent to eliminating about a half a million cars.

How?

First off, they plan to "encourage" the people of Denver to take on a more environmentally friendly lifestyle by penalizing them for "excessive" use of electricity or gas. They would also begin to charge people for "extraordinary" trash collecting as well as base auto insurance premiums on miles traveled.

After intense blowback from the people of Denver and abroad over this plan, which is nothing short of radical, the Mayor issued the following statement: "There are a lot of aspects that are worthy of conversation. But many of the ideas didn't come from my office...And frankly, at some point you have to put certain ideas back in the too-complicated drawer." Hickenlooper also emphasized the point that there must be "balance."

This is where the Global Warming hysteria is taking us. Just be glad that the mayor out there has felt the pressure and is backing off a little. The reason why I placed a number of the above words in quotes is because these words are said to be in the proposed legislation, but need to be defined. How much is "excessive" or "extraordinary?" Will it be based on the number of people in the home? Size of the home? Miles driven? Gas used? Its a bureaucratic nightmare...and one that isn't needed. Beyond all that, I do not believe that penalizing people for their legal choice of lifestyle is the right way to go about this. You know who they'll be going after.

By the way: According to the city inventory of "planet-warming gases," residents of Denver do not contribute any more greenhouse gases today than they did 15 years ago. On top of that, 9 of the warmest 12 years (since we've been keeping track) in Denver's history came before 1950, a full 25 years before the current warming trend.