Environmental Reporters And Other Oxymorons

The San Diego City Council approved a Climate Action Plan by unanimous vote Monday. The plan's ambitious goal is one hundred percent renewable energy by 2035.

The Climate Action Plan, or CAP, is little more than a city proclamation. It does not carry the force of law. It's like the city declaring that silver tinsel should be the city's official holiday decoration.

The word, "shall" does not appear in the CAP. The word, "should," however, does appear twelve times. It is not an ordinance. It's a municipal wish. The city could declare that today is "unicorn day," and it would be just as legally binding.

That hasn't stopped "environmental reporters" like San Diego Union Tribune's Joshua Emerson Smith to falsely declare that the CAP "creates legally binding mandates for reducing levels of greenhouse gases."

Maybe he's just following the lead of the Gray Lady.

One of the following inferences can be made by this distortion: either it's intentional, or it isn't. If he doesn't understand why the CAP is not a law, then, he's a jackass, and what the fuck is he doing pulling a paycheck? If he knows CAP isn't a law, but says it is, then he is an advocate. I know he's an advocate, he knows he's an advocate, and the only people that don't know this are the readers mistakenly putting their trust in him.

It would be more accurate to say that San Diego's CAP complies with existing law. The California Environmental Quality Act or CEQA of 1970 requires public agencies "to follow a protocol of analysis and public disclosure of environmental impacts of proposed projects and adopt all feasible measures to mitigate those impacts."

In other words, all projects must conduct environmental impact reports and adopt feasible mitigation. I think the key word there is "feasible." The Sierra Club took the County of San Diego to court within the context of CEQA. The California Supreme Court agreed that the County's CAP must consider the feasibility of the Sierra Club's own proposed mitigation.

The Sierra Club cited the main legislative impetus mitigating climate change, AB 32, also known as the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006. AB 32 empowered the California Air Resources Board to develop regulations that would reduce California CO2 emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. The Sierra Club also cited former Governor Schwarzenegger's executive order S-3-05, which set the goal of an 80 percent reduction of 1990 CO2 levels by 2050.

AB 32 is established law, and valid precedent for San Diego's CAP. Executive Order S-3-05 is extremely shaky ground on which to erect legal precedent; it's another one of those wishful decrees.

One final word on the feasibility of mitigation. Union Tribune reporter Smith cites unnamed "urban planning and environmental experts," who say that the "technology already exists" to reduce carbon emissions. One thing is clear. Smith didn't read the CAP. The CAP implicitly states that the technology does not exist. Further reductions in carbon emissions will require "improvements in energy technology and efficiency, transportation technology and fuels, building standards, consumer behavior, and future federal and state regulations."