Photo by Flickr user holyoutlaw.
The city council will announce its priorities for 2010 today at 2:00. The most (potentially) controversial item on the list: A proposal, spearheaded by council members Richard Conlin and Mike O’Brien, to make the city of Seattle carbon-neutral—i.e., producing a net total of zero greenhouse-gas emissions—within 20 years.
Today’s proposal won’t include a lot of specifics, Conlin says; instead, the council will commit to coming up with a definition of carbon-neutral (important, Conlin says, because “there are a lot of different interpretations of what that term means”); putting together a timeline to come up with specific proposals by Earth Day, April 22; and laying out a comprehensive plan with specific policy proposals by the end of the year.
Carbon neutrality is currently the fourth most popular suggestion on Mayor Mike McGinn’s “Ideas for Seattle” web site. However, McGinn himself has been lukewarm on the idea of adopting it as a formal goal, saying he’d rather work on specific policies—like getting light rail on the new 520 bridge—than adopt lofty goals that may not be achievable.
At a lunchtime meeting with reporters on Friday, I asked McGinn whether he would get behind any council proposal to adopt carbon neutrality as a goal. “Let’s be very clear,” he said. “I support carbon neutrality as a goal. But we’ve been down this path of politicians setting ambitious goals and not following through before”—a reference to his predecessor Greg Nickels’ vow to reduce emissions below 1990 levels, in line with the Kyoto Protocols, by 2012. (Although the city of Seattle is on track to meet that goal, many of the other 1,000-plus cities that adopted the same goal, with Nickels’ encouragement, will likely fail to do so.)
“We have a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but we’re building a bigger 520, we’re building an auto-only facility on our waterfront, we’re not funding the bike master plan,” which is on track to be underfunded by 70 percent. “The question isn’t what the goals should be. The question should be, how do you get there? … If we want to spend a year or two setting up a new goal and creating a work plan to do it while we’re taking actions that accomplish the opposite, that’s not what I think we should be doing.”
Historical side note: In previous years, the council responded to the mayor’s State of the City speech by listing its own priorities immediately after the speech was over, a strategy council members told me was not particularly effective in getting their message out and differentiating their agenda from the mayor’s. Perhaps in response to the council’s full-court press, Mayor McGinn is holding his own press availability immediately after the council’s.
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I actually agree with McGinn here. Don't waste everyone's time grandstanding for unachievable goals with no funding or mandate. This is about a couple councilmembers trying to one-up McGinn to the green crowd, nothing more.
So City Council, how do the following items help us become climate neutral:
– 520 with 6 lanes for cars and no light rail;
– The tunnel;
– Minimal funding for bike and ped infrastructure; and
– our current paradigm of land use planning?
Bold goal, but it will require bold action; and Council has yet to provide any indication that they are willing to take the bold actions necessary to achieve climate neutrality.
Yes, let's make super-ambitious yet amorphous goals, fund studies showing that they are not feasible, and then keep defining them down until we can achieve them by doing business as usual. Seattle has neither the legislative tools, the authority, nor the political will to approach anything remotely like meaningful “carbon neutrality.” However, the process of defining and discovering this will be useful for the Council, and may result in eventual breaching of the fortress neighborhood mentality that says “environmentalism is OK just as long it's only superficial”
I think this announcement will in itself provide great tools to get to carbon neutrality. The mayor now has the potential to keep pressure on the council to meet these goals, or they'll have tough future elections.
Just buy enough offsets to be carbon neutral now. Probably would get rid of most of the lower income people left and the services they need could be canceled. If the cost to live here would be high enough we could get rid of DPD figuring that any building costing over a million to build will meet codes.
Require all remaining residents to drive electric or hydrogen cars and we could dispense with transit saving even more money.
Re: “This is the first year the council has announced its priorities in such a splashy manner—including mass invites to constituents and a press availability immediately after the announcement. In previous years, the council responded to the mayor’s State of the City speech by listing its own priorities immediately after the speech was over.”
Not so…from 1/11, 2007 “Council President Nick Licata today announced the first Annual Legislative Address to Seattle Citizens.”
http://www.ci.seattle.wa.us/news/detail.asp?ID=...
Another bit we sent out:
http://www.seattle.gov/council/licata/up/228.htm
On Nick's request, other Councilmembers did the same. We packed the house that year too.
Erica, thanks for changing the post by eliminating the words: “This is the first year the council has announced its priorities in such a splashy manner—including mass invites to constituents and a press availability immediately after the announcement.”
But in leaving the words, “In previous years, the council responded to the mayor’s State of the City speech by listing its own priorities immediately after the speech was over” it still reads like the separate event was a new thing this year.
The Council has not piggy-backed onto the Mayor's State of the City since 2007. For the last FOUR years, the Council has done its own separate thing. Council even – in 2007 –passed legislation so the Council Rules (see link) would require a presentation “to the Council each year at a Full Council meeting in January as designated by the Council President, the committee's Annual Legislative Report. The report will identify accomplishments of the committee in the preceding year and objectives of the committee for the coming calendar year, in a report format as determined by the Council President.”
Sorry to be a stickler.
What WAS new (and cool I think) was the press Q&A at the end. I hope they do more of that!
It always amazes me how people eat up these lofty long term policies. How are these politicians so supposed to keep these promises after they are long forgotten if not dead.
How about 1 meaningful action this year and another 1 next etc.
Am I the only one who sees tremendous irony in a picture of Conlin talking about carbon neutrality as a bottle of water sits by his side?
Sorry– I thought I was living in a major metropolitan area with a vibrant economy & great quality of life. When did I move to smug Berkeley? Carbon neutrality? I'd rather have affordable housing, but then I make less than $50K a year so maybe I should just move to Kent because clearly “my kind” aren't welcomed here (“my kind” being people who have to drive a car in order to earn a living, who can't afford to buy a hybrid, who want to live in a politically and economically diverse community and who welcome density). Meaningless grandstanding.
Let the city government (all offices, facilities, and services) achieve carbon neutrality first, before any private business or citizen is burdened with regulation. That's the plan, right?
I like the boldness of it all. Buy-in certainly is the key. I would like to see some kind of index–say, car:person ratios for each neighborhood. They won't be exact nor perfect but they'll be something tangible to hang on to for the next twenty years, kind of like how market or census indexes grab hold of our attentions. Calorie-counting isn't going to keep people on board.
Carbon neutrality? Step one: Stop building more freeways.
Since somewhere around 80% of Seattle's energy needs are met with fossil fuels – there really is only one way. Nuke the city!!
Built four new Vogtle nukes right outside Everett, some time around 2020 when the Ap-1000 goes into mass production mode. By replacing fossils with the mass produced nukes the payback period would be less than three years.