Supposedly, at this time, The Plan is more about “spreading awareness”
(Portland Tribute) Portlanders, you’re driving too much and eating too much red meat.
And office tower landlords, you need to take major steps to cut energy usage.
Those are some of the takeaways from a draft update of the Portland/Multnomah County Climate Action Plan that goes out for public review this week. The update promotes scores of changes in our behavior, lifestyle, government and business practices so we can do our part to slash carbon emissions and prevent serious global warming — the biggest environmental threat to our planet aside from nuclear war.
The scary part is that means rolling back our carbon emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels over the next 15 years, and 80 percent over the next 35 years.
The good news is that emissions in the county already dropped to 14 percent below 1990 levels by 2013, the most recent data. That may not sound like much, but it occurred as the population grew 31 percent, so the reductions are huge on a per-capita basis.
It means rolling back their modern lifestyles. And this is exactly what the “climate change” movement is about: government dominance and control of our personal lives and the private sector.
The updated draft plan addresses the need to adapt to climate change, a recognition that some climate disruption already has occurred. That means we must plan for more heat waves in the summer, colder spells in the winter, more forest fires, a dwindling snowpack and more floods and landslides.
So, hot causes cold. Insert facepalm here.
Fixing that car rather than replacing it could help. So can eating more veggies. Producing red meat and dairy products requires far more carbon emissions than high-protein meals made from lentils, beans and tofu.
Right now these are just “suggestions”. How soon till they are mandates?
The biggest area of needed improvement, according to the plan, is for energy used inside homes and buildings.
The city now vows to mandate, for the first time, that owners of large office buildings record and publicize their energy usage, as a way to encourage more conservation. Another new mandate called for in the plan: requiring all homes to have energy performance ratings, so residents will know how much energy they are using.
And there are the mandates. Which will grow over time to requiring conservation under penalty.
Though Portland is known worldwide for reducing carbon emissions, there are some noticable lagging indicators. More than three out of every five trips in the county are done by a single person driving alone. The Climate Action Plan calls for that to be down to one in five trips by 2030 — only 15 years from now. To get there, the number of people who travel to work, school or play on foot, by bicycle or via transit would have to nearly triple.
Wait, in the Very Liberal City Of Portland which believes heavily in “climate change” they still use fossil fueled vehicles, and in such a horrible for Hotcoldwetdry manner? Strange.
