OSCER

Aloha kākou. Hawai’i Country has created a new government bureaucracy to address the Climate Crisis Hoax. The newly created department is designed to usher in a New Carbon Tax. The name of the new Hawai’i County government division is called; “OSCER” — Office of Sustainability, Climate, Equity, and Resilience. Other Hawai’i counties have similar climate change bureaucracies with various names, but they all have the same goal of introducing a Climate Tax upon tourists, residents, and businesses.

The new policy is designed to “mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, and to address the impacts of climate change and other natural and human caused hazards.” The impact definitions specifically target “human-driven climate change” but loosely includes natural disasters such as hurricanes and volcano activity. Nothing about government incompetence and overreach. The policy vaguely describes what “Environmental Justice” means and how it applies to actual enforceable law.

The woke term “Equity” applied in OSCER refers to what is defined as “historically marginalized” groups. Lower-and-middle-income people. “Mitigation” as applied to “Environmental Justice” to reduce harm caused by human made climate change. And voilà, a carbon credit tax is born. The measured metrics will be the reduction and removal of greenhouse gases. To achieve this goal of environmental justice, they assume there is a reward and punishment system to nudge people into behavioral patterns. That would most likely be a carbon tax to offset an individual’s carbon credit score.

Activities such as outdoor barbecuing using charcoal, wood, and gases such as propane would be contributing to greenhouse gases. Smoking meat and fish would be considered contributors to climate change. All Carbon Credit Violations √. Using electric grills would offset the carbon impact thus a carbon credit minus the carbon tax. Gas stoves and appliances that use fossil fuels would trigger a carbon tax and an incentive to switch to electric appliances. The purpose is to reeducate people into rethinking their impact upon the environment. Never mind where and how the electricity is generated.

“Sustainability” is defined as the state managing people’s lifestyle and wellbeing. Meeting social and economic mandates via carbon credits. Equity that meets the needs of the current population and future generations. This is where 15-Minute cities get their start. By caging in the population to reduce human environmental impact upon the climate. A human menagerie living in a controlled environment, limiting activities and distances traveled. An environment that promises balance and harmony in a well-regulated controlled environment. A prison by any other name.

There is a question of how economic growth and social wellbeing will spur a robust economy within a confined smart city. Where consuming resources, learning, and experimentation will violate carbon credit scores. What’s missing is creativity and invention. Adaptation to 15-minute boundaries is confining and limiting. Where one’s existence is defined within the confines of a bubble. Limiting human activity is good for the environment, they’ll tell you. Just not necessarily good for one’s mental health.

Now comes the Red Flags on how to enforce climate credits. OSCER will have a sustainability administrator with the authorization to adopt regulations as it deems necessary to meet and minimize climate change impact. Establish policies to minimize human and other natural hazards. Depending on what is specifically defined as a natural hazard. Volcanoes, hurricanes, and Tsunamis won’t necessarily obey OSCER’s rules. But nature’s hazard impact can be blamed on human activity. There’s where all the climate credits matrixes get reassessed.

SB2525 is a bill moving through the Hawaiian Senate which would establish a Carbon Credit Tax. During the testimony session there was strong opposition and support for SB2525. Supporters want the government to pay for carbon capture schemes to reduce carbon emission in the atmosphere. Those that support SB2525 claim that the planet’s temperature is rising, the ice caps are melting, and the oceans are rising. Storms are increasing in strength and damage, and dogs and cats living together in mass hysteria.

Those that oppose SB2525 understand third grade science. They know CO2 is plant food and is a necessary gas for life to exist on this planet. They know that a carbon tax will only increase the cost of food production, construction, energy, and transportation. The impact on the economy would be worse than any climate disruption. Real climate scientists know the impact humans have on the environment is minimal. They also know the economic impact upon the economy is real. Something that is never calculated in the equation until it’s too late.

The State and Counties are determined to create this new office of environmental justice. As if a crime has been committed against the planet. In reality, Hawai’i is just a spec in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The impact of our human emission is miniscule when compared to the amount of SO2 emitted by the volcanoes.  The left has decided to make Hawai’i an example to the world of what Net Zero Emissions can achieve. By punishing the Hawaiian people with a carbon tax, our government is setting an example to those Chinses Commies that building coal power electrical plants daily is wrong thinking. Meanwhile, the world keeps spinning on.

The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory has raised its alert level from yellow to orange for Kīlauea after increased activity has been detected beneath the volcano. An eruption could be imminent.

Current Conditions: Mostly cloudy skies with moderate rain showers. There is a 40% chance of precipitation. We received 13/16-inch of precipitation overnight. Tradewinds are from the northeast at 8 mph, gusts 17 mph. Cloud cover is 61. Visibility is 10 miles. Temperatures are in the low 70’s. Humidity is 93%. Barometric pressure is 30.01 inches and dewpoint is 70°. UV index 8. Air quality Index is fair at 37. Readings taken at 12:00PM HST.

Ianuali Kanakolu Kūmākahi 2024

Environmental Justice

Environmental Justice implies that an injustice has been done.

While the Obumble’s regime continues to stumble into one political scandal after another, the quiet destruction of our economy is being systematically carried out by the EPA.  I like to think of the Environmental Protection Agency as the Employment Prevention Agency.

This regime that refuses to prosecute real criminals, has selectively decided that there are environmental victims that now need justice.  Who are these victims of such evil environmental segregation?  Consider this statement from an EPA senior adviser:

“Far too often, and for far too long, low-income, minority and tribal communities have lived in the shadows of some of the worst pollution, holding back progress in the places where they raise their families and grow their businesses,” said Lisa F. Garcia, senior advisor to the EPA Administrator for Environmental Justice. “Today’s release of Plan EJ 2014 underscores Administrator Jackson’s ongoing commitment to ensuring that all communities have access to clean air, water and land, and that all Americans have a voice in this environmental conversation.”

…

Plan EJ 2014 is EPA’s strategy to meet the mandate of Executive Order 12898, “Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations,” which states that each federal agency, with the law as its guide, should make environmental justice part of its mission.

Executive Order 12898 was issued on February 11, 1994 by then President Bill Clinton.  You can read the whole text of that Executive Order here.  The Environmental Justice movement came about in the 1980’s, and the EPA created the Office of Environmental Justice (Offices of Administration and Resources Management) in 1992.  Originally named the Office of Environmental Equity, the purpose of the department was to integrate Environmental Justice concerns with the EPA’s existing programs.

However, Plan EJ 2014 states in the following goals:

• Protect health in communities over-burdened by pollution
• Empower communities to take action to improve their health and environment
• Establish partnerships with local, state, tribal and federal organizations to achieve healthy and sustainable communities.

The EPA calls Plan EJ 2014 a strategy for integration of Environmental Justice into the EPA’s day to day activities and that this is not an regulation or rule.  Yet.  In 2014, the EPA will issue an “assessment” of its progress in implementing the goals of Plan EJ 2014.  A report will be issued detailing the accomplishments, lessons learned, challenges, and next steps in enforcing environmental justice.

How does this redefine the EPA’s authority?  Other than issuing environment grants to various groups, does this grant the EPA more power to regulate and apply rules?  Who are these people, the low income, minority and tribal communities, that the EPA considers living in the shadows of the worst pollution in America?  Where are these places in America that are holding up progress?

Remember in 2009, the EPA declared dust a pollutant.  In particular, coarse particulate matter.

In its opinion yesterday, the court upheld EPA’s rule for farm dust, saying that the industry petitioners “mistakenly equated an absence of certainty about dangerousness with the existence of certainty about safety.”

While the judges acknowledged that evidence about the dangers of rural dust is “inconclusive,” they said that the agency was not required to wait for conclusive results before regulating a pollutant believed to pose a significant risk to public health.

This is significant because it sets the precedent for the EPA to further regulate just about any industry, business and home without any evidence, reason or need.  The agency doesn’t have to wait for studies and research to declare anything it wanted as a pollutant.  Such as CO2.

EPA’s endangerment finding covers emissions of six key greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride – that have been the subject of scrutiny and intense analysis for decades by scientists in the United States and around the world.

By declaring Carbon Dioxide as a pollutant, the EPA has chosen to endorse junk science.  Not only is Carbon Dioxide a naturally producing gas, it is also a necessary gas for life on this planet.  How does the EPA regulate CO2?  What will it cost and who will the rules affect?

The EPA has been issuing, quietly, rules as a part of the Obama regime’s policy on Cap and Trade.  What the regime couldn’t do by legislation, they’ve been doing by Executive Order Fiat.  Even though the regime had to delay implementing several of own regulations:

For the second time in four months the Environmental Protection Agency has confirmed that they will again delay the release of their much anticipated global warming regulations.

Only after the regime realized that its EPA regulations would cause major power grid interruptions in order for power companies to comply with the rules.  During peak time in the summer and winter when demand for electricity is high, power plants would have to redirect power causing rolling blackouts.  Not only would that cause great public hardship, it could also cause emergency first responders from performing public safety duties.  It would cause an interruption of businesses causing millions of dollars of lost revenue.  It could actually put people’s lives in danger.

 

Caveat Emptor

 

Another important issue is the money trail.  While the EPA is doling out million dollars in grants, who will be auditing how and where the money is being spent?  Who will be held accountable?

Due to its ambiguous definition, the amount of money distributed for environmental justice is difficult to track.

Many of these justice grants, however, have been issued through Environmental Justice Small Grants Program, which started in 1994 and has awarded more than $21 million in funding to 1,200 local organizations for environmental justice. In 2010, the Obama administration distributed $1.9 million, more than another year in over a decade.

At the beginning of this year, the EPA awarded another $7 million to “scientists around the country,” as part of the Science to Achieve Results (STAR) research grants program, to study how pollution affects “poor and underserved communities.”

The Environmental Protection Agency should be renamed to the Employment Prevention Agency, because the Obama regime’s track record on green job creation hasn’t been very good.  All those green-jobs that were to be created by taxpayer loans are failing.  These green companies are going out of business and the government is losing billions of taxpayer dollars in bad investments.

Solyndra, the solar panel company whose highly publicized failure and consequent investigation by federal authorities has flashed across headlines recently, isn’t the only business to go belly up after benefiting from a piece of the $800 billion economic stimulus package passed in 2009. 

At least four other companies have received stimulus funding only to later file for bankruptcy, and two of those were working on alternative energy.

Environmental Justice implies that an injustice has been done.  The EPA has made a claim that people who are low income, minorities and tribal, are being discriminated against by polluters.  Are there examples of such discrimination?  Which low income, minority and tribal groups are affected by this charge by the EPA?  This country has some of the most stringent environmental law in the world.  Clean water and clean air has never been better.  So who are the unfortunate ones?

In this Fox Business News video by John Stossel entitled “Freeloaders”, shows the difference between Indian tribes that accept government money, and those that use the capitalist free-market system.  Clearly, those that employ limited government enjoy a higher standard of life.  Could it be that government programs, grants and rules interfere with the health of the community?  Could it be that the government is the source the pollution segregation?

As a part of Obumbles plan to redistribute wealth, and the EPA’s pattern of waste and fraud, the regime has obviously identified some group it considers victims of Environmental Segregation.  If this is so, then who are the perpetrators?  Who is the target of the EPA’s wrath?

 

 

 

What’s For Snacks?

 

Home Made Banana Bread