Soundings (6/9/09)

Bucks in the Bay

• Cutis Dye missed meetings while in SF;
• Barry Kramer against Safe Haven petition for Bellingham
• Steve Spitzer's son a mountain guide, last weekend called from 14,000 feet!
• Lynn Templeton oldest son was named head coach at his HS alma mater Thomas Jefferson High in Seattle!  Ferndale club construction starts tomorrow!
• Bob Becker also against Safe Haven initiative;
• Bill Gorman sorry he snapped last week about Comcast channel lineup, and congrats to Lynn about fundraising for Ferndale B&G Club, and lastly son graduated from Sehome last week!
• Bill Geyer upcoming birthday, 20 years marriage to Ruth, 10 years in business, and echos Barry's sentiments about "Safe Haven" initiative;
• Dan Wilkerson interact club going into 10th year, many successes;
• Brent Walker went boating in sunny Canada, and a wedding anniversary;
• Jane Carten happy bucks missed meeting, new nephew, and her sister Sarah will be moving to Bellingham;
• Dannon just moved into house in Columbia neighborhood, thanks to husband Matt and his work;
• Tonja daughter Miranda graduating from preschool tomorrow!
• Scott Caldwell, board President Big Brothers Big Sisters club raised $17,000 at recent fundraiser!
• Lance Calloway for something;
• Eddie Hanson opening third office in Lynden, been very busy!
• Ron Hardesty proud that Squalicum HS won athlete-scholar award for WA State!

Sergeant at Arms by Matt Rose
Everyone who doesn't know the names of the four new members, Glenn Beck grad of Sehome, Steve Oswald grad of Bellingham, Hilary Swank grad of Sehome, the band Idiot Pilot grads of Sehome.  Next, trivia on Winter Olympics.

Program
Bill Gorman introduced Todd Myers, the environmental director for the Washington Public Policy Center, based in Seattle.

"Free Market Environmentalist" because both free market and environmentalism deal with limited resources.  Using resources wisely to ensure they will be there in the future.  Todd noted the example of hybrid, electric and hydrogen cars.  Only the hybrid (Toyota Prius) was a success, because only the hybrid was born of free market initiative.  Another example was the "less plastic" bottle of Arrowhead bottled water.

Green Buildings: In WA State all schools now are built green because they were thought to save energy and boost health, etc.  Turns out not always true, for many reasons.  Turns out political solutions often leads to bad decisions, and when they don't work they double down!  Promised only 2% additional, they actually cost 6% more on average!

Climate Change and CO2 reduction:  Recently, the legislature rejected the governor's climate change initiative, but she went back and issued an executive order anyway on initiatives that simply don't work. Europe, by comparison, is now working on Cap&Trade basis since 2005, success is only 0.4% in total since then.  Too many ways to game the system. 

Todd thinks we have to take CO2 emission seriously and need to work to reduce it.  Climate change because of CO2 emissions is probably true, but the level of cause and effect is very speculative.  He suggests we (the state or the country) consider a very limited carbon tax, and tax reduction for innovation.  Technology is the solution.  Success will come through incentives for innovation. These are the approaches that the Washington Public Policy Center takes.

Respectfully submitted,
Stowe Talbot