Insanity Reigns

Even assuming that all claims made about climate change are valid, San Diego is leading the way as to engaging in insane responses to solving the problem.

The city Council has decided that our gas stoves, water heaters and furnaces are a contributor to climate change to a degree that warrants the citizens of this city spending $18 Billion to reduce (not eliminate) the issue. That’s $18,000,000,000.00.

The council has already passed an ordinance that all new construction commercial and residential, single family and multi-family,  must be built without natural gas hookups, effective immediately.

Since we are currently straining the limit of our existing power system, and are frequently directed to use appliances only at “off peak hours,” it is unclear where we are going to get the electric power to replace the gas appliances that will not be installed in all of this new construction. Probably by having the power company run backup generating stations which are powered by… Wait for it. Natural gas.

Not to mention the tens of thousands of electric cars that are mandated by new state laws at the same time.

The City Council is also intending to pass a directive that all existing buildings, commercial and residential, multi-family and single family, must be retro fitted to eliminated the use of natural gas. They have estimated the cost, which will be borne by the owners, to be $30,000 per unit, so this plan is proving to be highly unpopular. The groundswell of unpopularity is not deterring them in the least.

Since there are, by the Council’s estimate, 60,000 buildings in the city of 1.4 million people, that comes to a conversion cost of $18 Billion, or about $13,850 per San Diego resident.

And that is to reduce, not eliminate, an unknown amount of carbon emissions, (no one even claims that such emissions have never been measured) by an unknown degree, since we are not going to quit heating our houses and water, and cooking our dinners. We’ll be heating and cooking using electricity, which is generated in large part by… Wait for it. Fossil fuels.

And they are in a hurry. They plan to mandate that the conversion be 50% completed by 2030, just seven years from now, and that it be 90% complete by 2035. They seem to be realistic enough to acknowledge that it will never achieve perfection, as they have set no date for 100% completion.

We elected these people. The question is, why?