Boulder Election 2011

Given recent local election coverage, you'd think the only things we're voting on were municipalization and corporate rights. However, Boulder has no fewer than eight ballot issues this year.

Issue 2A allows the city to sell $49,000,000 in bonds for critical infrastructure needs, including maintaining streets, bridges, buildings, and recreation facilities; upgrading software, the main library, and police and fire equipment; and improving transportation connections and streetscapes. It's hard to argue with those priorities. The bonds will be paid back using existing revenue streams. Plus, the work will generate local jobs, helping the local economy.

Issue 2B allows the city to extend and increase the utility occupation tax levied on Xcel's customers to further investigate the feasibility of a municipal power utility. Question 2C authorizes the city council to create a power utility, if it proves it can do so in a cost-effective manner, with rates and reliability comparable to Xcel's and a plan for more renewable energy.

David Miller, in his guest commentary a week ago, rightly pointed out that there are many unanswered questions related to this proposal. We don't know how much it will cost, nor how much additional renewable energy will be feasible. However, we can't know these answers without approving both measures. So, the real question is whether we want to know, or whether we will continue to trust Xcel to work in Boulder's best interest.


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We're going about this thing all wrong

I'm talking, of course, about the economy. It's annoyingly broken, and for some reason just refuses to fix itself.

The tea party gang would have you believe it's as simple as spending less money and reducing the deficit. However, they can't actually believe that will work. Every economist and his brother-in-law tells us that cutting government spending will just send the economy further into the toilet. Economies in the toilet, as we've seen recently, tend to result in larger deficits.

Of course, Obama and the Democrats don't have a much better plan. They're banking on stimulus that's so tepid that Republicans might even vote for it if they hold their noses. Tepid stimulus leads to, you guessed it, tepid recovery.

I have a modest proposal.

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Take our Time with Energy Decision

Two weeks ago I wrote about Xcel's proposal to provide Boulder with lots of wind energy. I said that Xcel would be able to count that wind energy towards its legislated mandate to provide 30 percent of its Colorado electricity as renewable or recycled energy.

I received a couple of emails from folks who told me I was wrong. Xcel would sell the renewable energy credits associated with the new wind energy to Boulder, and Boulder would get the RECs.

However, the Colorado statute that mandates utilities to provide a minimum percentage via renewable and recycled energy doesn't mention RECs. It just says that the utility has to generate or cause to be generated the energy.

The Public Utility Commission rules that implemented that law say that a utility will use RECs to meet the mandate, but they don`t seem to say that RECs are the only way to meet the mandate.

Confused? According to Xcel, the interpretation of this requirement doesn't matter. They say that they`ve already gotten enough renewable energy lined up to meet the mandate without Boulder, and to meet it early. Whether or not they are allowed to count the Boulder wind toward the 30 percent, they are not planning on doing so.

They don't need us.


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Zero net carbons

Xcel Energy has finally outlined a proposal to City Council for a new franchise agreement that looks like it meets the goals for Boulder's energy future. I'm not convinced.

It's actually quite slick, a virtual game of three-card Monte. Who uses the renewable energy? Who pays for it? Who gets credit for it?

Xcel already provides renewable energy. They have to by law. Under their Boulder proposal, they won't have to provide a single kilowatt-hour more. Xcel claims that this wind power generation capacity will be built specifically for Boulder, but that is disingenuous. It will still count against Xcel's statewide renewable energy mandate.

They think they've found a mark for their con game. Boulder citizens want more renewable energy, and Xcel management is betting we'll willingly spend more to get it. They've also used the classic con strategy of telling us the deal is off the table if we don`t agree by November.

With Xcel's offer we'd be getting the same renewable energy that Xcel already has to generate, but we'll be on the hook to pay for it while everyone else in Colorado will get a price break.


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No Longer Polar Opposites

As a child I liked to dig deep holes straight down, on the theory that I'd eventually make it to China.

It turns out that if I'd kept going and survived the 10,000 degrees at the earth's core, I would have popped up in the Indian Ocean off Australia. China is exactly opposite us in longitude, but at the same latitude.

It's probably for the best that I didn't make it. At the time, China was in the hands of Mao. Mao was never called Emperor, but he acted as one, perhaps one of the cruelest in China's history. Tens of millions died under his rule, and the souls of many more were crushed.

On his recent trip to the U.S., Chinese President Hu made waves saying that while his country has "made enormous progress," "a lot has to be done in China in terms of human rights."

He is right.


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Fixing Health Care isn`t the Answer

Politicians of all stripes have solutions to our heath care crisis, whether it's giving everyone access or letting the free market rule.

But you can't solve health care without solving health. Otherwise the current cycle just continues.

That cycle, discussed in my previous column, is based on health fads, each promising to fix our health with new supplements and enhanced foods, and each fad in turn proving to be insignificant or counterproductive. Look for example at the now discredited low-fat craze still driving many diets.

Will today's fads (super fruits, omega-3 fatty acids, and vitamin D) follow the same pattern?

It's taken us 10,000 years to adapt to dietary changes resulting from the invention of agriculture. Some of us still can't eat wheat and dairy. How can we thrive on foods invented in the past few decades or less?

Is an antioxidant really better than fruit? Refined flour better than whole grains? Factory-raised meat better than wild game? Pasteurized non-fat hormone-treated milk better than fresh whole milk? Vitamin water better than real water? "Natural flavor" better than any real food?


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Real Health Foods

Imagine that you are the owner of a health food store who is cryogenically frozen for 200 years. When you wake up, you are told that everything you sold at your store is actually bad for you, and all the stuff that was supposed to kill you is actually good for you.

That's what Woody Allen finds out in his science fiction movie, "Sleeper." But it may also be the key to America's health care crisis.

It turns out that the food industry in this country has been lying to us for decades. Every time they come out with a new product they say is supposed to be good for you, it most likely is just the opposite.

Industry has accomplished much positive. Food is now much cheaper, it transports more easily, it doesn't spoil as quickly and it is much more convenient. People that were starving before are much more likely to be able to afford food.

But this progress has come at a huge cost. Each bit of processing brings a food item one step further removed from the foods we evolved to eat.


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Gut Check

It's not easy being logical in forming opinions. We humans are wired to make decisions with our guts, and to manufacture a rational world around those decisions.

We are easily manipulated. A news story with lots of blood convinces us that a minor issue is the problem of the day. For example, the Camera front page has a story about an accident at a flashing crosswalk, and suddenly flashing crosswalks are death traps. We conveniently ignore the fact that most traffic accidents do not happen at these crosswalks.

Then you throw in peer manipulation. One person says that pedestrians don't look before crossing the street. Pretty soon it is common knowledge that pedestrians in Boulder have a death wish and always walk out directly in front of cars without even a glance, an opinion that, if examined logically, couldn't possibly be true.

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Flushing our Environment down the Toilet

I was looking at the plastic packaging from the Earth First toilet paper we recently purchased, trying to determine if the plastic was recyclable. Generally, recyclable plastic bags have a recycling symbol with a number that tells you exactly what it is, and which lets you know if it is one of the types taken locally. But all I saw was the symbol on the package saying 100% recyclable.

Did that refer to the package, or just to the contents?

Then I noticed on the package in small print something saying that the plastic was designed to be environmentally friendly, and would expire in 18 months.

I had no idea what that meant. Would I have to bring it back to he public library, or what?

So I called the number on the package. I thought about pretending I was Gene Weingarten, but decided to play it straight.

The operator I talked to listened to my question and was flummoxed, and she sent me to customer service. The customer service agent had also never heard the question before, and said she'd get back to me after talking to the factory.

Just about this point in the conversation, I finally saw it -- the number 4 recycling symbol on the plastic wrap. So, that was my answer. Recyclable after all! I decided to not tell the person on the phone what I'd seen, mostly out of embarrassment.

When the phone call came a hour or so later and the caller ID said "Royal Paper," I ignored it, thinking it was some kind of telemarketing call. But my wife picked it up, and it was my agent calling back to make sure she had the details of the query. What brand of toilet paper was it exactly I was looking at?

Well, it turns out that Earth First is the environmentally friendly brand used by Royal Paper, I guess to differentiate it from their eco-disaster brands, like Soft & Silky and Petalo.

And when they finally called back with the answer, we found that the bag was not a recyclable number 4 plastic, but a decomposable number 4. That means that the bag decomposes over a small number of months.

But decomposable doesn't mean compostable. It doesn't turn into organic material, so we can't put it into the compost. It's not regular plastic and can't be recycled. If it ends up in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, it will turn into microscopic plastic bits that will make their way up the food chain. It has to go into the landfill.

Plus, the confusing packaging makes it likely that the bag will be thrown in with the rest of the plastic bags being turned into fleece or lumber, and may contaminate the entire load.

Royal Paper, how has your greenwashing (or greenwiping) helped anybody, except helping you market your green brand to gullible environmentalists?

Immigration Woes (Gringo Ir a Casa)

Immigration reform has been in the news lately. On my recent Mexican vacation, I saw the seriousness of the problem from the other side of the border fence.

Tens of millions of folks from north of the border are crossing into Mexico every year. A million Americans are living there, more than half illegally.

Many Americans move to Mexico because of its high quality, inexpensive health care system. Drugs are widely available and inexpensive. Drug dealers, called "farmacias," are on every street corner, anxious to sell the addict anything she thinks she needs.

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Liberal Guilt

My wife and I are pretty darn serious about minimizing our impact on this planet.

We proudly put out one orange bag of whatever trash we can't recycle, reuse or compost about every six weeks. Our water usage is an order of magnitude smaller than our city-assigned budget.

We bike and bus and walk, and Caron rides her hot pink scooter so we don't drive much. Our old cars work fine, thank you; the energy to scrap and replace them with a shiny new hybrid would be more than we'd save in years of use.

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Health-Care Reform that Just Might be Workable

It may turn out that major health-care reform isn't politically feasible now. But that shouldn't stop us from making significant improvements to our woefully inadequate system.

The biggest problems with cost and coverage come from the insurance industry. And the only way insurance companies will learn to play nice without competition from the government is with new regulation.

Insurance companies have become de facto monopolies. If the only health care you can afford is via insurance offered by your employer, the insurance company has no incentive to keep you happy.

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From Fat, Dumb and Happy to Healthy, Wealthy and Wise

Manufacturers use a tool called Pareto analysis to evaluate quality issues. They rank the problems and attack the biggest ones first.

I don't have to draw a Pareto chart to see where to start with health care costs. More than 75 percent of medical expenditures are for treating people with chronic diseases.

Chronic illnesses include cardiovascular disease, cancer, respiratory disease, and diabetes. A large percentage of cases are preventable, or can at least be managed less expensively.

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Keep on Clunkin'!

The cash for clunkers program may be many things. However, environmentally friendly isn't one of them.

Look at it this way. Suppose you trade in a car that gets 18 MPG for one that gets 28 MPG, and that you driver 12,000 miles per year. Also, assume that you will keep the new car for the typical six years.

For each of those six years, you will be burning 428 gallons of gas instead of 667 gallons. You save 238 gallons per year, or about 35% of the gas you would have burned.

A study by Toyota showed that as much as 28% of the carbon dioxide emissions generated during the life of a car occur during its manufacture and its transport to the dealer. That means that up to 38% more CO2 is generated than the CO2 generated from the burning of fuel during normal operation.

So, you emit 35% less CO2 during operation, but the act of buying a new car results in up to 38% more CO2 just to get you that car.

Ignoring the economic impact, the very best thing you can do is keep driving that car until it doesn't go any more.

The only exception I can think of is if you put lots and lots of miles on your car every year and plan to keep it a long time. Then, it might make more environmental sense to buy a new, more fuel-efficient car, and donate your old car to charity.

But scrapping the old car, as is required by law under this program, is pure waste.

Obama's New Direction on Economy: Declare Success and Move On

The Obama administration is ready to announce a completely new direction in its attempts to rescue the economy, according to new information from Christina Romer, the head of the President's Council of Economic Advisors. In an interview with David Gregory, to be aired Sunday on Meet the Press, she discussed the idea, originally put forth by the President's newest advisor, Gunduz Caginalp. Caginalp is a mathematician from the University of Pittsburgh and past editor of the Journal of Behavioral Finance.

Obama was intrigued, according to Romer, by Caginalp's work, and by the idea that the economy is driven by human nature as much by "invisible" market forces. Within a month of entering the office, the President launched a behind-the-scenes project to see if psychology could be leveraged to help solve the current economic crisis.

If it works, it will certainly be a first in human history.

Nobel winning economist Paul Krugman, not a fan of the President's efforts so far to fix the economy, accused Obama of being nothing more than "an armchair psychologist". "There are real problems here," Krugman said, "problems that have been fueled by over two decades of bad policy. If the President thinks he can just click his heels together and wish the problem gone, he is indeed living in the land of Oz."

Romer, paving the way for the President's new plan, was definitely upbeat. "The American workers are sound," she said. "We have a good capital stock. We have good technology. We are just temporarily in a mess."

When asked how Obama's new plan would work, Romer would not give specifics, saying that the details would be given in a speech to the nation next week. But she did give Gregory an outline of some of the key points.

Obama intends to explain to the American people that the economy truly is sound. Nothing has changed since a year ago, when people weren't worried about their houses and jobs. The only thing that has changed, Obama will tell us, is that people got worried. They stopped spending, they stopped borrowing, they stopped hiring.

Romer would not tell Gregory exactly what the President's full message to the people would be. But she hinted that Obama would tell us that the future of the economy is not in the hands of Congress, it is not in the hands of Wall Street, it is not in the hands of the bankers. Any improvement in the economic situation will depend on the actions of all of the American public.

So, apparently, the President is going to tell us all to go out and spend, borrow, hire, invest, build, and pretend that this whole economic meltdown never happened.

"That's just crazy," Krugman said of the plan. People are hurting because of wishful thinking. And now the President of the United States, possibly the smartest man to hold that office in the past hundred years, is wishing on a star, crossing his fingers, and saying the magic words, hoping that we all won't notice what is happening behind the curtain."

Caginalp has not been available for interview by anyone. But one of his former colleagues, economist Vernon Smith, and like Krugman a Nobel laureate, said, "This is just crazy enough that it might work." But he added, "Of course, it would be nothing more than a smoke screen. If we were lucky, it could last to the end of Obama's term in office, and hs successor would be left with double the mess to clean up."

But Romer summed up what many people are privately thinking: "Let's wait to see what Obama has to say." We know he is a great salesman, and it may be that a great salesman is exactly what this country needs right now.

And so the country waits to see if the man behind the curtain can really give us a heart, a brain, and some courage.

AIG on their Faces

So, whose fault is it that AIG is using their bailout money to pay huge (by most people's standards) bonuses to the very people who made the bad decisions that brought them to where they needed the bailouts?

Well, clearly there is plenty of fault for Bush and the 110th Congress, as well as Obama and the 111th Congress. They tell us that these bonuses were required by contract and had to be paid.

But didn't the big automakers just get some bailout money, and wasn't one of the conditions that they had to renegotiate union contracts? Clearly it can be done.

Also, retention bonuses are paid to keep good employees on board. What's the worst that would have happened? These great employees would have left?

But I think a huge part of the blame falls to all of us, who seem to require quick action from our government in preference to correct action. We've seen it many times, and rarely do the legislators involved ever get called to task for responding to this primal fear.

It seems to me that the best time to enact protections against the things that contributed to the current economic crisis is when writing "emergency" legislation. Wouldn't it make sense to tie any stimulus or bailout money to regulations and protections against financial abuses, rather than spending the money and then going back later and trying to pass the new regulations when memories have dimmed?

The Only Way to Stop Global Warming?

I write quite a few essays about global warming. These include several ideas on how individuals can help address the problem. But I'm not naive enough to think that even a significant minority of well-intentioned consumers doing what they think is right will have a measurable impact.

Some of my Libertarian-leaning friends say that the solution should be left to the free market. (At least they are mostly agreeing that the problem is real.) But here's the problem with that. Given enough time (say, 100,000 years), the free market will arrive at a solution. But in the meantime, lots of people and species will suffer, and most of them are not directly related to the companies and individuals causing the biggest impacts. You see, the flaw in this thinking is that spewing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere is definitely impinging on others' rights, and the free market should not allow individuals or companies to infringe on the rights of others in the name of profit, even if those others are not yet even born.

One politically popular approach is cap and trade (carbon trading). Here, companies are issued the right to emit a certain amount of greenhouse gases. If they emit more, they have to purchase the right to do so from someone else. If they emit less (or if they remove carbon from the atmosphere), then they can sell the credits.

The problem with cap and trade is that it assumes people and companies have the inherent right to put greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, impacting future generations around the globe. That would be like saying that, since there are 16,000 murders per year in this country, we are going to cap and trade permits to kill people. The permits will be issued proportionally to the number of murders you committed last year. If you kill more people next year, you will have to buy more permits from someone who came in under their cap. (Have no fear, each year we will cut the number of permits issued. By the year 2050 we will only be allowing 10,000 murders per year -- uh, subject to change based on input from organized crime's lobbyists.)

I've always thought that a carbon tax (actually a tax on any greenhouse gas emissions) is the ideologically best way to approach the problem. You charge a tax for any fossil fuel burned. It can be charged when the fossil fuels are mined, when they are burned, or any point along the supply line, but we would need to be consistent so they are charged exactly once.

You may ask, what about other countries? This will have no impact on China, India, or any other part of the world that may be contributing significantly to the problem.

I have two answers to that. First, we slap a tariff on all imported goods and services, proportional to the amount of greenhouse gases used to produce and ship to the U.S. If the producer can provide proof that they have an equivalent tax in their home country, this tariff will be waived. And second, if this program is successful, it can provide a model for other countries, and a useful tool in negotiating international agreements.

There's one more big problem with a carbon tax, and this is where I got stuck. Such a tax is highly regressive. The people who will suffer the most are those that already can't afford the gas to drive to work and the energy to heat their homes.

I pondered this last issue long and hard until I ran across this idea from Jim Hansen. Dr. James Hansen is none other than the scientist who first brought climate change to the attention of the U.S. Congress in the 1980s, and he continues to be active in the field.

Dr. Hansen suggests (actually demands) a carbon tax, but he adds a twist: 100% of the revenue of the tax is refunded immediately to the citizens. People would receive monthly direct deposits into their bank accounts. None of the received new tax money would be spent by the government. Instead the money would be divided equally among every man, woman and child.

How does that work? Say this new tax causes massive inflation (after all, the companies paying the tax will just pass it on to consumers). People might be paying $1,000 more per month for home heating, electricity, gasoline, and goods and services produced using these resources. But, the same people would be seeing the same $1,000 appear like magic, like clockwork every month.

If I'm a smart consumer, I'm going to figure out how to cut back on my energy usage and set aside some of that new money to make my home more energy efficient, or buy a plug-in hybrid, or any number of investments designed to allow me to live more efficiently and hence spend less money.

And, if I'm a smart business, I'm going to figure out how to get some of that new money. I'm going to start selling some of those energy-efficient products. And it won't be something goofy like carbon credits. Instead it will be something that will actually cause less greenhouse gas emission.

How much money are we talking about? Well, one estimate was that it would take an investment of about $100 per ton of carbon dioxide to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. Each person in the U.S. emits about 22 tons of CO2 per year. So, we're talking about new taxes (and new dividend checks) of about $200 per month per person, or $800 for a family of four. Most of the cost for the typical family, I assume, would be in the form of higher prices for energy, and for good and services produced using fossil fuels. That cost would be offset by direct deposit of an approximately equal amount each month.

Of course, we'd need a scientific panel to determine the correct amount of the new tax for each product or service, as this should not be a political decision. And we would likely want to phase this tax in over a small number of years.

Is this the best solution? I don't know. But it seems to me that we need to be thinking about radical ideas such as this, instead of relying on do-gooders, relying on the free market, or relying on the ability of politicians to solve this in a timely manner. Because a timely manner is the thing that is most important.

This Amendment is Still on the Waiting List -- Colorado 2008 Amendment 51

Amendment 51 is a breath of fresh air -- it is not written as a constitutional amendment, but rather updates the Colorado Revised Statutes. I'm tempted to vote for it for that reason alone.

But I figured I should at least read it first. So, here's the bottom line:

The State of Colorado, with the help of a number of local nonprofits, provides a number of services to people with developmental disabilities. These are people who have no means to provide these services for themselves. Unfortunately, there is a waiting list for these services, and that waiting list is getting longer rather than shorter. In fact, there are 9,700 people on the waiting list and funding for only about 11,800 to receive the services. In four years, the number of people on the waiting list is expected to exceed the number of people receiving services.

The authors of this measure have a solution. That solution is a 0.2% sales tax increase (phased in over two years) that can only be used to provide these services and bring down the waiting list.

So far so good. The state has signed up to provide services to a population that relies on and has no other way of getting them, and the state can't afford to adequately provide these services. These are services such as job training, speech therapy, physical therapy, even basic long-term care. This measure would bring in more money to meet that commitment.

Here's the downside. A sales tax is a regressive tax, and it would be increasing at a time when the economy is in pretty bad shape. In Boulder, the tax total sales tax paid by each person would increase by more than 2%. This increase is almost as bad as getting a 0.2% pay cut. The people paying the tax would be those who are struggling most. The tax revenue would be earmarked, which means that it could not be spent on anything else. If any other state spending priority needs more money, its supporters will just have to get their own earmarked tax increase.

I would agree that deciding public spending priorities through earmarking at the ballot box is an incredibly bad way to run a government. It's where we've ended up, and I don't see a way out of this cycle.

This measure comes down to one simple thing, then. Do you believe that the state's obligation to help people with developmental disabilities is strong enough to override the negatives of an earmarked sales tax increase in a poor economy? I guess the guilt has gotten to me, but just barely, and I'm going to go for this one.

Vote YES on Amendment 51.

The Good Deal -- A Parable

Improving kWm by kWm

I think and write quite a bit about climate change and the environment, and in our household we take environmental awareness quite seriously. We burn less natural gas, use less gasoline, use less water, and generate less garbage than most households in this country. So, when we found in an energy audit a few months back that our electrical usage was actually above average, we were quite embarrassed.

You see, we had already done most of the things you do to cut down your energy usage. All of our light bulbs are compact fluorescent. Our appliances have by and large been replaced with more efficient models as the time has come to retire the old ones. We don't use air conditioning. And we removed the jacuzzi tub in our yard. What was going on? Was someone breaking into our house in the middle of the night and plugging in high wattage floodlights?

Fortunately, the energy auditor gave us a couple of tips, so we had something to try. We've now gotten three bills since the audit, and I'm happy to report that our monthly usage, compared to last year, has gone down 13% (for the first, partial month), 14%, and 25% for the most recent month. Our electricity usage for the past month was likely the lowest it's been since we moved in several years ago. That's an incredible savings, and I feel like we did almost nothing to earn it.

What did we do? First we turned off a couple items of electronics that weren't being used, and put most of the rest on power strips. Want to watch TV? Just remember to flip on the power strip before you sit down, and flip it off again when you're done. Going to use the treadmill? There are two power strips you have to flip, one for the exercise equipment, and one for the entertainment equipment. And who wants to work out inside this time of year anyway?

Power strips are about $5 - $10 each. We actually had some lying around, so this cost us nothing. And once you get used to it, the amount of extra effort is almost nothing. This equipment now draws power a few hours per week maximum, rather than 24 hours every day. It adds up.

We also configured our computers to go into hibernate mode rather than running all the time. That's a bit of a bother, as it now takes a little longer to start up when you sit down.

One other thing. Our home computer has an Energy Star LCD flat panel display, but my work computer in my home office had a rather old CRT monitor. I asked my employer for a new monitor. An energy-efficient monitor can be purchased for about $150. The one my employee provided probably cost $200 or $250 new, but they happened to have one that wasn't being used, so there was no expense involved.

So, our savings came with no cost to us and very little inconvenience. If we had bought the power strips and a new monitor, we could have spent less than $200. Our June electric bill was more than $12 cheaper than our June bill last year. At that rate, the investment would have paid for itself in a little over a year.

We discovered that it's true that the little things add up. Kilowatt minutes can easily become kilowatt hours. Most electronic devices continues to draw power even when they are turned off, so the secret is finding those items that you don't use all the time and cutting power when you aren't using them. And make it easy to do so, so you really will do it.