Brown’s and CARB’s Tahoe-ist Environmentalism Killing Jobs

by CalWatchdog Staff | August 14, 2012 8:53 am

[1]Aug. 14, 2012

By Wayne Lusvardi

Gov. Jerry Brown[2] once dabbled in the concept of “Tao”[3] in Zen Buddhist religion. William Voegeii[4] says that what explains Jerry Brown’s “Tao” is his rejection of his father’s values.  But it isn’t Brown’s, Tao but his embrace of “Tahoe-ist” environmentalism that explains why jobs are being killed in California.

On Monday, Brown issued a statement at the Lake Tahoe Summit that scientific fact is not on the side of global warming “deniers.”  Concurrently, the California Air Resources Board[5] considered installing a kill switch on 90 percent of its Cap and Trade pollution credit-trading program due to the weak economic recovery in California.  Somebody please tell Brown that CARB has found a way to turn off global warming!

Brown’s statement issued near warming ‘hot spot’

Also on Monday, Brown launched a website[6] to rebut global warming skeptics.  It devotes two pages to “denialists” and rebutting “common denialist arguments.”  Brown launched his website and issued his statement[7] in Stateline, Nevada, at the annual environmental Tahoe Summit[8].

Brown’s website[9] stated:

 “Global warming’s impact on Lake Tahoe is well documented. It is just one example of how, after decades of pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere humanity is getting dangerously close to the point of no return.  Those who deny global warming’s existence should wake up and honestly face the facts.” 

As global warming skeptic Anthony Watts points out on his website “Watts Up With That?”[10], Brown issued his statement near the official National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration  weather station in Lake Tahoe.  As the photo above clearly shows, the temperature reading station at Lake Tahoe is within 5 feet of a barrel used to burn trash and near the hot reflective surface of a nearby tennis court. Global warming “denialists” may (or may not) be denying the facts.  But unscientific data collection from temperature-measuring stations and politicized disinformation may be corrupting those facts.

CARB Asked to Issue Free Pollution Permits

The Sacramento Bee reports that the California Air Resources Board[5] is studying whether it will give industries free permits to emit 90 percent of their greenhouse gases in January under its Cap and Trade program.

Cap and Trade is a program that caps the amount of air pollution an industry can emit.  The only way to emit more than the cap is to buy pollution credits from either the state or from other companies that already emit less than their “cap” and have credits to “trade.”  Cap and Trade was developed by CARB in respnose to the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006.

CARB’s concession to study giving out free pollution credits is in response to pressure from the California Chamber of Commerce.  The Chamber is concerned that many industries and businesses will leave California.  Out-of-state industries do not have to buy pollution credits to reduce air emissions.

Johns Manville[11], a Berkshire Hathaway Company, is a manufacturer of energy-efficient building insulation, roofing materials and other materials.  The prolonged downturn in the real estate economy in California has weakened the financial situation of the Manville plant[12] in Willows, Calif.[13], which presently employs 200 people.  The Willows Plant is threatened with shutdown if it has to buy pollution credits.

The Willows Plant is located in Republican Glenn County[14] in Northern California. Glenn County has a population of about 28,000 and an unemployment rate of about 18 percent as of 2010.

The city of Willows’ population is about 6,000.  A loss of 200 employees would reflect about 7 percent[15] of its workforce.

According to the Sacramento Bee, other corporations with facilities struggling to stay in California include Campbell’s Soup and Del Monte Foods.

“Tahoe-ist” Environmentalism Threatens Local Economies

So-called environmentalists in the Tahoe area who hate tourists hold the annual Tahoe Summit.

They have put forth trumped-up “scientific” facts that pollution from tourist auto traffic (or local warming) has directly affected the clearness of the blue-green lake by causing algae blooms. Over the years blocks and blocks of cheap motels have been bulldozed and replaced with open space and “wetlands” to reduce the tourist population and enhance the value of the vacation homes of those San Francisco elites who live there.  Stickers that say “Keep Tahoe Blue” ironically grace the bumpers of every third appropriately-named Chevy Tahoe SUV.

Brown apparently knows how to ingratiate himself with Lake Tahoe’s elite pretend-environmentalists, who know well how to cover up their self-serving NIMBY (“Not-In-My-Back-Yard”) economic interests.  But it is the tourist economy in Lake Tahoe and the major building material and food processing industries in California that are threatened with extinction by Tahoe-ist environmentalism, not the other way around.

Unfortunately, Brown’s and CARB’s environmental policies have been to demonize, criminalize and tax those very industries that are threatened by out-of-control environmentalism.  It is easy for Jerry Brown to deny the global warming “deniers” in front of a crowd of pretend environmentalists in Lake Tahoe.  But it is getting harder and harder to deny the causes of much of California’s economic decline is related to Brown’s and CARB’s “Tahoe-ist” environmental policies.

Source URL: https://calwatchdog.com/2012/08/14/browns-and-carbs-tahoe-ist-environmentalism-killing-jobs/

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