The July 30 meeting of the Anchorage Assembly contains an action item that could lead to even more regulations for businesses and residents, as well as increased government carrying costs in the future: Another Climate Action Plan is going to be funded.
Mayor Suzanne LaFrance is requesting $362,750 to pay a private company to plan and provide the Climate Action Plan. The contract with Resource Systems Group, Inc., the group being recommended for the award, would run until June 30, 2026.
- “The AMATS Climate Action Plan will build on the existing Anchorage Climate Action Plan, inventory transportation greenhouse gas emissions, evaluate strategies to reduce future emissions, update equity data from the AMATS Non-Motorized Plan, and engage a broad array of stakeholders throughout the development of the plan,” according to the LaFrance Administration.
The original climate action plan for Anchorage was adopted by the Anchorage Assembly on May 21, 2019, during the administration of Mayor Ethan Berkowitz, a Democrat who left office early due to a scandal involving a local news reporter.
There’s no explanation given by the current mayor’s office as to why another Climate Action Plan is needed. The goals of the first Climate Action Plan for Anchorage still need to be executed. They include:
- Continue upgrading street and trail lights to high-efficiency LEDs.
- Improve energy and water efficiency in municipal facilities.
- Expand local renewable energy generation and use.
- Increase opportunities for residents and businesses to implement clean energy technology.
- Reduce the number of vehicle trips by offering alternatives for getting around by walking, biking, carpooling, and taking public transit.
- Support infrastructure for electric vehicles.
- Increase waste diversion.
- Capture more potential energy in collected refuse.
- Protect forest, wetlands, waterways and urban green spaces.
- Prepare for and respond to increased risk of wildfires and other health and safety impacts of climate change.
- Conduct a financial analysis to assess and plan for the cost of climate actions.
- Evaluate life-cycle costs in planning and procurement.
The prioritizing of planning for climate change comes at the expense of real-world problems that Anchorage is facing, which include a loss of population as working Alaskans move to the MatSu Valley, and the overtaking of the city by large vagrant-and-criminal encampments, which have made walking the streets and trails an unsafe activity for residents, who may choose to use their cars to get around in order to ensure greater safety.
If an average homeowner pays $6,000 in property taxes to Anchorage, that means the tax payments of 61.3 homeowners are being used to finance this new Climate Action Plan. Just the plan, not the action itself.
Meanwhile, China is building two coal plants per week, according to Reuters, which reported last year that China had 243 gigawatts of coal-fired power either approved or under construction, enough to power the whole of Germany.
China began building coal-fired plants with a total capacity of 37 GW in the first half of this year, and approved 52 GW of new projects, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air and Global Energy Monitor, whose dataset shows the Bank of China to be the largest financier of coal plant construction globally, with over $6.5 billions invested, while China Construction Bank has $3.3 billion invested in coal plant manufacturing.
“The climate cult must be celebrating the return of its influence with Municipal leadership,” said Rick Whitbeck, Alaska state director of Power The Future. “Spending $362,000 to refresh a completely unnecessary and cost-prohibitive set of criteria that will lead to increased municipal costs seems counter-productive to rational people. Yet, here we are with doing just that under the two-headed monster of Chris Constant and Suzanne LaFrance. Anchorage needs to focus on crime, homelessness and economic development, and less on trivial matters that only will line pockets of special interests at taxpayer expense.”
The city of Anchorage chose LaFrance to lead the city. It is no secret that LaFrance believes in anthropomorphic climate change, and the majority of voters in Anchorage agree: Man-made climate change is an existential threat to life on Earth. LaFrance’s political philosophy is simple. She has allied herself with a belief system that teaches individuals are part of a whole, where the individual becomes accountable for the actions and or consequences of others. Her faith, ideology, and essence, if you will, is an ancient religion based on human sacrifice. Trading success for failure is the heart and soul of her church. Let us pray. In the name of Beelzebub, amen.
“…LaFrance believes in anthropomorphic climate change, and the majority of voters in Anchorage agree”
Prove the latter part of that statement. Oh, I thought so, you can’t.
Pissing away even more $$ on this bugaboo and what is being done to truly improve the homeless situation?
Spending money for climate change is nonsense. The climate of the world has been changing since day one and will continue to change. No one has been able to predict with any accuracy which way it is going. There are lots of theories and to spend money on a theory is not very wise. We are better off, teaching our children and others in our community to simply clean up after themselves pick up their trash throw it away in the proper containers. Our city is no longer a clean, beautiful place to visit or to live homeless camps and trash everywhere. Teach common sense environmentalism it’s the little things that add up that makes the world and our city a better place to live.
70% of Anchorage residents didn’t even vote in the last election. You are the reason businesses are going to move out of socialist Anchorage. You all should stay in Anchorage and enjoy the new taxes and regulations you didn’t vote for…Ha, ha, ha.
This is the main objective of woke, DEI-elected Assembly members. Anchorage and Fairbanks. They are younger, fully indoctrinated scribes of man-made climate change politics. THAT is their First Amendment religion. Not Christianity. These brainwashed (not educated) little souls have made their sacraments to this misguided cause through college pursuits. Their goal is to take over local government and push this agenda in the public, regardless of costs to the public. They must be stopped, at all costs. And they will be stopped.
This quote came to my attention this morning, and it seems apropos to anything that the Anchorage Assembly touches on.
“I enjoy democracy immensely. It is incomparably idiotic, and hence incomparably amusing. Does it exalt dunderheads, cowards, trimmers, frauds, cads? Then the pain of seeing them go up is balanced and obliterated by the joy of seeing them come down.”
– H L Mencken
(Notes on Democracy, 1926)
‘trimmer’ (slang) – a person who alters his or her opinions on the grounds of expediency.