Betsy Cashen wrote to let me know that her local group (website is neighbors2neighbors.net) has planned an educational event in Poughkeepsie, NY on Thursday, May 18th, 2023 from 7-9pm. She asked me to share the meeting notice with anyone in the area who may be interested in learning more about the Climate Act.
Organizers
The group organizing the meeting represents Columbia County residents who want to create a resilient community by informing our neighbors and asking questions. Some of the questions of concern:
- Why the sudden push to ban the appliances we use to cook and heat our homes?
- How feasible and reliable is it to heat our homes with expensive and vulnerable electricity made with fossil fuels?
- Why blanket our best farmland with solar panels?
- Why is New York State overriding home rule?
- Why insist there is consensus when there isn’t?
- Why does the State insist there is only one answer to a problem?
My impression is that they are trying to reach out to the Climate Smart Communities (CSC) program supports I described that program earlier this year. It is supposed to help local governments take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to a changing climate. The questions raised point out that the ‘Climate Smart’ slogan is great marketing but doesn’t seem all that smart.
Meeting Announcement
This is a follow up to a meeting held on February 16, 2023 (video here). There will be three speakers: James Hanley, Sara Traberman, and Bobbie Ann Cox, followed by Q&A. Key points that will be covered by the speakers and why it’s important for all stakeholders– local & county officials, Climate Smart task force members, and the general public- to attend:
- The NYS Climate Act and CAC Scoping Plan is a “Lose-Lose” for upstate towns and counties
- The “all electric” mandates are infeasible and present a health and safety danger to all New Yorkers
- Permitting process for solar and wind farm developers renders local laws, codes, and master plans irrelevant and inconsequential
- Part N in the 2023 NYS Budget provides an 80% property tax break to solar/wind developers leaving towns and counties to make up the revenue shortfall
- Proper environmental impact reviews are not conducted and represent significant danger to habitats, waterways, farmland
- No decommissioning or recycling plan or process for solar panels or EV batteries at end of useful life
- Who pays for the hazardous waste disposal of solar panels and EV batteries?
- The CAC Scoping Plan feigns to have included input from an advisory committee representing local and county governance; however, the committee did not include anyone currently holding a public office.
- Local elected officials and their constituents must have a say in how solar and wind projects will be implemented in their towns and counties. Join us to learn more and ask questions at the Climate Act Town Hall on Thursday, May 18th, 2023 7-9pm at Faith Assembly of God, 25 Golf Club Lane, Poughkeepsie.
Speakers: Dr. James Hanley, Empire Center for Public Policy – empirecenter.org
Sensible Solar for Rural New York – sensiblesolarny.org
Bobbie Anne Cox, Esq. Uniting NYS – unitingnys.com
The meeting will be held on Thursday, May 18th, 2023, from 7-9pm, at Faith Assembly of God,
25 Golf Club Lane, Poughkeepsie, NY
The flyer announcement notes:
When the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA–aka The Climate Act) passed in 2019, few New Yorkers even knew what happened. Albany legislators set extreme, unrealistic targets for carbon reductions without specifying how those goals would be accomplished. That would be left to an appointed Climate Action Council (CAC). In December 2022, the CAC submitted its final plan to the Governor and legislature for implementation. Plans to force people to convert to electric homes, water heaters, cars, stoves, and buildings or face substantial surcharges and carbon taxes will backfire. We can’t afford tens of thousands of dollars in new costs! Nor do we want the electric grid to become even more unreliable, or see electric rates soar. The details of the CLCPA/Climate Act raise huge concerns, and you owe it to yourself to learn more, and make your voice heard!
What we don’t know can hurt us.
Comment
If I were not 3.5 hours away from the meeting I would attend. I encourage readers to pass this on to anyone in the mid-Hudson Valley because I agree with their concerns. Most New Yorkers are still unaware of the magnitude of the changes and costs required to implement the mandated transition to net-zero by 2050. I have been following the Climate Act since it was first proposed and have written over 300 articles about it. I am convinced that the Hochul Administration does not understand the magnitude of the changes, the risks to reliability, the impacts on affordability, and the environmental impacts of the wind and solar resources that they propose to use. The Scoping Plan is a list of control strategies but there hasn’t been a feasibility analysis to prove that it will work. Worse, there is no implementation plan. There are virtually no limitations on the deployment of utility-scale solar and as a result I estimate that over 6,000 acres of prime farmland will be covered by solar panels by projects approved to date. Unless the Hochul Administration gets its act together this will continue unabated.
Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York 