Pirate's Cove

Both cities approved restricting residents from driving fossil fueled vehicles in the city limits and that every homeowner would put dozens of solar panels on their homes….oh, wait

Key Biscayne voters approve $100M bond tied to climate change

Key Biscayne residents voted to pass a referendum that would allow the village to issue $100 million in general obligation bonds to deal with the effects of climate change.

More than 56 percent of the roughly 6,100 voters in Key Biscayne approved the referendum in Tuesday’s general election.

About $40 million could go toward mitigating the effects of sea level rise and flooding, $23 million toward protecting the beaches and shoreline, and more than $49 million to harden and place infrastructure underground to withstand hurricanes, according to the village’s August town hall presentation.

The closest active long term sea level measurement site is in Virginia Key, which shows just. .96 feet of sea rise per century, which is below the expectation for a regular Holocene warm period.

Critics have called the referendum a “blank check” measure that does not identify specific projects the bonds would fund. Attorney David Winker, who is representing a resident suing the village over the referendum, said his client’s lawsuit is “about what good governance and public participation in decision-making on funding of resiliency measures should look like.”

Winker said it violates the village charter, as well as Florida law requiring that voters be provided with sufficient information about the projects that would be funded.

There’s no real data on where this money is coming from, so, you can expect tax increases.

ELECTION 2020 | Denver voters approve pair of sales tax increases to fight climate change, tackle homelessness

Denver’s total sales tax rate is jumping to 8.81% next year in the name of resolving homelessness and curbing climate change, voters have decided.

As of 10 p.m. Tuesday night, 2A — a measure that would raise city sales taxes by 0.25% to clean up the city’s climate footprint — had earned about 64% of the vote. That means, as of January, the tax will begin raising roughly $36 million annually to make it happen, according to the Denver Climate Action Task Force, which made the calculation. The goal is to move the city closer to its target of achieving a 40% decrease in greenhouse gas emissions by 2025, a 60% drop by 2030 and a 100% decrease by 2040.

I wonder how much they could decrease Denver’s carbon footprint if they shut down their airports, including the international one, which would eliminate all the car rental companies renting to those who are going to drive to go skiing. Oh, right, they don’t care that much.