Global Warming Soaks Up Attention
Planning Commission Approves Energy and Climate Action Plan
If there was a week to be hip to climate change, this was it. With the echo of the 400,000 activists who marched through New York City streets on Sunday hitting the South Coast, three planning commissioners on Tuesday gave the green light to the county’s plan — years in the making — to combat global warming, forwarding the final decision to the Board of Supervisors. Gathered ahead of this week’s United Nations Climate Summit — where President Barack Obama said global warming was an “issue that will define the contours of this century more dramatically than any other” — 100 supporters of Measure P, the November ballot measure aiming to ban all new fracking, acidizing, and cyclic steam injection operations, rallied in Plaza Vera Cruz Park. And on Wednesday, Representative Lois Capps joined Supervisor Salud Carbajal at UCSB to discuss how Santa Barbara County can gird itself against the ravages of a warming world.
“The evidence, scientifically, is in,” said Planning Commissioner Joan Hartmann at Tuesday’s meeting, pointing to a graphic showing the small sliver of scientific studies out of 10,000 that questioned that climate change is man-made. Hartmann, who participated in the New York City demonstration, gave an impassioned speech in support of the county’s plan, calling it “imperative” that smaller jurisdictions, removed from a “paralyzed” Congress, take charge of the issue. “The very processes that support life on Earth are being undermined,” she said. “I’m very pleased that Santa Barbara County is acting.”
The plan, which looks to lower greenhouse-gas emissions in the county’s unincorporated areas by 15 percent, or to 2007 levels, by 2020, would impose required and requested steps on homeowners and business owners. Pending the supervisors’ approval, voluntary measures would be implemented first, with the mandatory ones visualized in annual county budget talks. Much of the plan centers around offering incentives to make houses and buildings more energy efficient. County planner David Lackie said ordinances and permit processes will likely have to be established to get the ball rolling and will require an investment on the county’s part in increased staff time.
