Mayor Takes Heat for Global Warming Denial
"I like it hot," Randy Voepel, Republican Mayor of Santee, California, wrote in a blistering e-mail declining an invitation from a Santee citizen who invited the Mayor to a a climate protection party.
Organizers of the event also asked Voepel to sign the U.S. Mayors' climate protection agreement. Instead, the Mayor issued this poison-pen response: "I wish you a great time at your `Destroy the American Economy Party' and hope signing meaningless documents makes you feel better about a future that is in God's hands alone."
The Mayor also spewed forth his view that global warming is a "left wing attempt to cripple the economy" and insisted that climate change is merely part of a natural cycle.
Apparently Santee's devout leader sees nothing sinful about interfering with God's will to benefit business, but draws the line at taking action to protect our planet.
After a leaked copy of his e-mail landed on my desk, I phoned the Mayor--thinking surely the inflammatory document was the product of a hoaxter. But Voepel proudly claimed credit. Asked if his city is doing anything at all to reduce greenhouse emissions, the Mayor retorted, "We have a lot of other real issues to deal with." As examples, he cited fighting expansion of a landfill and stopping a power plant from being built on his city's border.
Did it ever occur to Voepel that installing, say, solar panels on city rooftops might eliminate the need for that power plant? Or that adopting mandatory recycling programs (as some neighboring cities have done) might cut the need for landfill expansion while also reducing greenhouse emissions from the dump?
But no. Santee's waste-and-whine Mayor sees nothing wrong with doing absolutely NOTHING to conserve resources, reduce energy consumption or switch to clean fuels. Yet he has the audacity to gripe about getting all that nasty trash and pollution deposited in his own backyard. Tsk, tsk. Look up the definition of "hypocrite" in your dictionary and you'll no doubt find Randy Voepel's in boldface type.
Mayor Voepel's outlandish comments drew astonished gasps and criticism from both left and right.
"Is the world flat?" quipped Nancy Pearlman, producer and host of Eco-News, a national cable TV environmental series. "There's a point where one has to accept the scientific analysis of what's going on...This issue is neither for the left or right. This is a movement to protect life on the planet."
In the neighboring city of La Mesa, Republican Mayor Art Madrid has signed the U.S. mayors' climate protection agreement and adopted numerous policies to work toward climate neutral status for his community. Those include adding hybrid vehicles to the city's fleet, planting trees under the Tree City USA program, seeking Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification for a new police station, encouraging growth along public transit lines, and considering standards to encourage construction of climate-neutral buildings.
Told of Voepel's remarks, Madrid observed, "Individuals who have that mindset or that perception are into a severe state of denial and really don't want to acknowledge empirical data from scientific evidence."
Democrat Mary Sessom, Mayor of Lemon Grove, thinks global warming is a serious issue. Her city has partnered with a local school district to convert diesel-burning trucks and buses to natural gas, provided electric carts for district employees, and created "solar farms" to power all public schools in the city. The City also looks at LEED green standards when considering building or remodeling applications.
What does Sessom have to say to her counterpart in Santee? "God bless you, Randy, but you and I disagree on this."
Going green actually saves money, said Sessom, shooting down Voepel's economic justification for unrestrained trashing of the environment. "Green buildings are more efficient buildings, so there's an economic reason," she said. "There are long-term payoffs not only for the environment, but for the budget."
Mayor Mark Lewis of nearby El Cajon, a Republican, noted that going green creates new jobs and new technologies. He lobbed a well-meaning barb at his neighboring mayor: "We can't keep doing the same thing over and over. That's why we don't have horse and buggies anymore."
Though not convinced that global warming is exacerbated by human activities, Lewis believes it's better to be safe than sorry. "If we screw this up, I don't think too many of us will escape in rockets," he observed. "It's our children's and grandchildren's lives. We only really have one shot at this."
El Cajon has converted trash trucks to run on natural gas, used pollution credits to build a power plant at the far end of the County (a plan one might think would appeal to Voepel's NIMBY mindset) and embraced tree planting. The City is also looking into requiring that 75% of materials be recycled during demolition or rehabilitation of buildings.
Upon hearing of the Santee Mayor's comments, Lewis shot back, "We need to educate Mr. Voepel."
Allow me to begin Voepel's much-needed education.
Ten of the hottest years in human history have occurred in the past 14 years--and 2006 was the hottest ever recorded. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of the world's leading international climate scientists assembled by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations, issued a grim report in February which concluded that global warming is "unequivocal." Moreover, the panel concluded that odds are higher than 90% that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from human activities are the major cause of rising temperatures.
Scientific experts predict that 200 million people worldwide could be displaced by severe droughts and rising sea levels if nothing is done to curb global climate change. Earlier this year, an island nation became the first to completely vanish, submerged by rising tides. Think Indonesian tsunamis on a colossal scale. How many more people will die of worldwide flooding, drought, and fires sparked by global climate change?
Ah, but no doubt the NIMBY Mayor of Santee cares not what happens to a bunch of poor people in Asia or Africa. So what about the probable effects of climate change in his own already-toasty East County region, which suffered the worst wildfire in California history just four years ago?
"The potential for fire is exacerbated," said Madrid, echoing concerns of fire officials who predict more frequent and severe wildfires in Southern California if climate change is not averted. Water shortages, drought, and proliferation of disease-carrying insects are also forecast.
On the plus side, rising ocean tides could make Santee's inland location prime beach-front property. Hmmmm....perhaps those developers who line Voepel's campaign coffers have a long-term profit motive--the only logical explanation behind the Mayor's conservation=sin mentality.
Leon Thompson, the Santee resident who received Voepel's rude rebuke to his party invitation, drew a similar conclusion. "It's obvious when you drive through Santee that the leadership here panders to developers rather than caring about people and our environment," he said dryly, adding that he finds Voepel's outlook "scary."
I wonder what Voepel's God thinks about a leader who ignores truth while enabling the pollution of our planet--God's creation, according to the Bible in which Voepel espouses belief? By perpetuating the right-wing spin machine's deceptions about global warming, Voepel and those of similar mindset are putting people's safety and lives at risk.
Thou shalt not lie. Thou shalt not kill.
Perhaps Voepel skipped those commandments back in Sunday School. But by refusing to help stop what many now believe is the worst threat ever to face our planet, the righteous Mayor had best be prepared to accept his share of guilt should a worst-case climate protection meltdown occur.
Voepel says he "likes it hot." But how much heat can he handle?
Come Judgment Day, I suspect Santee's Mayor may find himself in the proverbial hot seat--in a place far hotter than he had in mind.