[Source: foxandhoundsdaily.com] Looking back, California’s flagship climate change policy Assembly Bill 32, the Global Warming Initiative was signed into law in 2006 when California was a miniscule contributor to the world’s greenhouse gases. Statistically, the World is generating about 46,000 million metric tons of GHG’s, while California has been generating about 440 million metric tons, which is less than one percent of the world’s contributions.
Today, we’re constantly being bombarded with reminders and progress reports toward achieving California’s plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 40% below 1990 levels by 2030 and an 80% reduction from 1990 levels by 2050.
Now, more than a decade since the passage of AB32, California remains as the most environmentally regulated location in the world, yet California still contributes a miniscule one percent, and has had little to no impact on the reduction of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Very often, when our political leaders are confronted with the facts that California is one of the most business unfriendly states in the union, our politicians often reply, “yes, but we’ve got great weather”. Well, they’re right, California has the best year round weather in the nation and that has lead us to become the 6th largest economy in the world.
With a robust economy, the good news is that we can “afford” to micromanage almost anything, but the bad news is that the costs associated with micromanagement are being born by the rich and poor and has contributed to California having the largest homeless and poverty population percentages in the nation to compliment the robust economy.
California is an “energy island” to its almost 40 million citizens, bordered between the Pacific Ocean and the Sierra Nevada Mountains whose 35 million registered vehicles of which 90 percent are NOT EV’s are consuming DAILY: 10 million gallons a day of diesel and 42 million gallons a day of gasoline. In addition, the state’s daily need to support its 145 airports (inclusive of 33 military, 10 major, and more than 100 general aviation) is 10 million gallons a day of aviation fuels.
No other State or Country has the stringent environmental regulations as California to keep greenhouse gas emissions in the world to a minimum, thus it’s imperative that California continue to promote in-state manufacturing of the chemicals and by-products, and aviation, diesel and gasoline fuels manufactured from crude oil on the California energy island. All those products from crude oil supports the military and all the California infrastructures, which are the basis of the prosperity of our growing population.
The renewable sectors of wind and solar, like every other infrastructure, are dependent on the products manufactured out of crude oil for all their components so they can produce emission free intermittent electricity.
With all the world’s efforts to protect life, United States wind farms are “legally” killing hundreds of thousands of birds, eagles, hawks, and bats every year, and it’s appalling that society has given the wind industry a FREE get-out-of-jail card!
Bald and golden eagles are not endangered species anymore but are protected under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The bald eagle population is growing, while the golden eagle populations is declining.
In 2017, the Obama administration finalized a rule that lets wind-energy companies operate high-speed turbines for up to 30 years — even if means killing or injuring thousands of federally protected bald and golden eagles. Under the new rule, wind farms may acquire an eagle “take” permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) that allows the site to participate in nationwide killing of up to 4,200 bald eagles annually, under incidental “take” permits without compensatory mitigation. If they exceed their eagle “take”, there are adaptive management measures designed for each project, that often include reducing operational hours if deemed necessary to reduce risk.
It’s appalling that wind farms can legally obtain permits from the USFWS to kill those majestic bald eagles.
The public, especially the homeless and poverty populations that have paid dearly for the micromanagement of our emissions and renewables, deserves to know the costs being incurred to reduce our minuscule contributions to the world’s greenhouse gases, and as a courtesy to provide emission free intermittent electricity, share with the public the total estimated impacts of all birds taken that are reported to the USFWS.
Ronald Stein, P.E. Founder PTS Staffing Solutions Engineering – IT – Professional
rstein@PTSstaffing.com
Source: OpEd- foxandhoundsdaily.com
August 6, 2018
