The Colorado Springs Gazette, Oct. 1, on climate change, politics, and mental health:
Climate change. We will all die in the very near future unless the left gets everything it wants. So we hear.
Democrats trying to unseat U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colorado, should think about children when they visit Colorado Springs Saturday for a candidates’ forum titled “Planet in Peril.” Do not lie to our kids. Do not exaggerate. Do not steal their hopes and dreams.
Eight of nine Democrats in the primary plan to participate, with only former Gov. John Hickenlooper taking a pass.
Hickenlooper blames a “scheduling conflict,” but it could have more to do with his drinking problem. In his consistently righteous defense of the anti-poverty fracking revolution, Hickenlooper drank fracking fluid to illustrate how safe it is. That was more than five years ago and it hasn’t killed him yet.
As governor, he also threatened to sue local governments that tried to ban fracking. Hard-left environmentalists hate all of that history, so Hickenlooper just won’t fit in at “Planet in Peril.”
If this forum turns into another contest of Democrats trying to out-perform each other with global warming histrionics, Hickenlooper made just the right choice.
The default leader of today’s Democratic Party _ six years too young to run for president _ is New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, aka “AOC.”
“The world is going to end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change,” AOC declared at a New York event celebrating the civil rights and humanitarian legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.
This inane prediction did not marginalize AOC among progressives. It emboldened her and the eco-religious apocalyptic vision caught on.
“We have no more than 12 years to take incredibly bold action on this crisis,” said Democratic presidential candidate Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke. “Can we make it? I don’t know.”
If we don’t make it, prepare to die of heat.
“We either end our reliance on fossil fuels, create a clean energy economy, or we’re cooked,” said former Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff during a “Climate Strike” event Sept. 20 in Denver.
Then came the media’s new teen superhero, who battles global warming to save humanity.
“You have stolen my dreams and my childhood,” said 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg. “The popular idea of cutting our emissions in half in 10 years only gives us a 50% chance of staying below 1.5 degrees Celsius, and the risk of setting off irreversible chain reactions beyond human control.”
An end-of-times political campaign does not come without cost. With or without doom saying, we have a mental health and suicide crisis among our youths. The last thing they need is a constant insistence they have no future. Rhetoric so dark causes hopelessness and despair.
Just ask the experts.
The American Psychological Association, Climate for Health, and ecoAmerica published an obscure study in 2017 that said:
“Psychological well-being includes positive emotions, a sense of meaning and purpose, and strong social connections. Although the psychological impacts of climate change may not be obvious, they are no less serious because they can lead to disorders, such as depression, antisocial behavior, and suicide.”
From Scienceforstudents.org: “Climate change can be bad for mental health…children and teens are especially at risk, psychologists now report.”
No credible scientists predict the world will end in 12 years, but kids don’t know as much. They hear mostly from media darlings who transform otherwise legitimate climate discourse into something more like an asteroid-racing-to-earth disaster film.
Our children and teens already deal with bullies, drugs, a future of national debt, and increasing demands on their time and talent. Don’t tell them global warming dooms their immediate future, just to win a primary. Don’t lie for effect.
Editorial: https://bit.ly/2nU1j9J
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The Vail Daily, Oct. 1, on local ballot issues about tax exemptions:
Eagle County voters are looking at a relatively short ballot this fall, with only a pair of state questions and a small handful of local ballot issues.
Two of those questions, 6A and 6B _ for the Eagle Valley Library District and Eagle County Health Service District, also known as Eagle County Paramedic Services _ are similar in that they’re asking voters for protection from future cuts in residential property rates.
Both districts are asking voters for relief from future property tax cuts due to the provisions of the state’s Gallagher Amendment.
That constitutional amendment, proposed and passed in 1982, sets a permanent ratio between the share of property tax paid by residential and non-residential property owners.
Here’s how it works:
Residential property tax collections must make up no more than 45% of a town, county or special district’s property tax collections. The remainder is to be paid by non-residential property. That’s mostly commercial and agricultural property.
As Colorado’s population has grown, so has the number of residential property taxpayers. To comply with Gallagher, residential taxpayers have seen a steady decline in the taxable percentage of their homes’ assessed values. At this point, the owner of a home pays roughly one-fourth of the tax rate of a similarly valued non-residential parcel.
Since the formula is applied uniformly across Colorado, rural areas that haven’t seen Front Range levels of residential growth have seen their property tax collections decline. That decline has public-safety implications.
For instance, the voters in the Gypsum Fire Protection District in 2016 passed a tax increase request to increase the district’s paid staff and upgrade its aging equipment.
By 2018 _ before the 2016 measure’s collections had kicked in _ Gallagher-mandated rate declines had taken away the voter-approved increase.
So the district in 2018 asked voters to exempt the district from further tax-rate declines imposed by Gallagher. It wasn’t a request for more money, but to keep funding levels voters had already approved. Voters passed that question in Gypsum, as did voters in the Greater Eagle Fire Protection District and numerous other special districts across the state.
This year, library district and ambulance district voters are being asked the same questions.
We think those requests have merit.
For the library district, maintaining property tax collections at current levels means maintaining services, from book purchases to programs for kids and seniors.
At the ambulance district, lives could be at stake. In addition to maintaining its current staff of about 70 people and keeping those people up to date with training, the district also has to regularly replace ambulances _ at roughly $250,000 each _ and pay for fuel, insurance, maintenance and all the other things necessary to keep any fleet of vehicles ready to roll at any moment.
The ambulance district estimates that by 2022 it could lose about $990,000 per year out of its current annual budget of roughly $13 million per year.
That’s unacceptable for a valley-wide service in the business of saving lives.
Again, neither district is asking voters for more money _ each is just asking to protect money they are collecting now from looming cuts.
Voting “yes” seems like a pretty painless way to maintain services at both these districts.
Editorial: https://bit.ly/2prfSC8
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The Pueblo Chieftain, Oct. 1, on PAWS for Life animal shelter owner heading to court:
Looking back on it now, it all seems like a bad dream.
After many years of successfully managing the Pueblo Animal Shelter’s operations, the Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region came under vicious attack from a vocal group of critics. The siege on the Humane Society lasted for many months before the City Council ultimately decided to let the local group PAWS for Life take over the shelter contract.
From there, things only got worse. Much worse. Within a matter of a few weeks, the shelter’s operations were the focus of an investigation by the Colorado Department of Agriculture related to allegations of animal abuse and neglect. And not long after that, PAWS officials were relieved of their duties and replaced with Humane Society staff again.
It certainly was an ugly chapter in the city’s history and some people undoubtedly would like to forget it ever happened. It’s a bit too soon to let go, though.
Last week, a court official said there will be a hearing at the end of this month related to criminal charges against Linda Mitchell, who briefly ran the shelter for PAWS, and Dr. Joel Brubaker, the staff veterinarian during PAWS’ tenure.
Details about the pending charges are sketchy. Both Mitchell and Brubaker are facing 10 misdemeanor counts of animal cruelty/neglect/mistreatment. District Attorney Jeff Chostner declined to elaborate on the nature of those charges, citing concerns about tainting jury pools should either or both cases go to trial.
We’re not in a position to judge the guilt or innocence of either defendant. Our court system will take care of that.
But if this unfortunate case hadn’t resulted in any criminal charges, it would have been highly suspicious. The state investigation resulted in some horrific findings that should trouble even the most casual of animal lovers.
Investigators found animals in obvious need of medical attention, including a dog with a missing jaw, another dog that was unable to stand, a cat with bloody drool and another cat with chronic diarrhea. Some animals reportedly went days or even weeks without receiving medical treatment.
The documented cases of suffering were cruelly ironic, since PAWS for Life had sold itself to the public and the council as an organization that would provide a more humane level of care than its predecessor/successor.
PAWS for Life was selected for the contract because of its work running a private “no-kill” shelter in the city. However, as the group quickly learned, running a public shelter that doesn’t have the option of turning away animals that may be unsuitable for adoption due to temperament or medical issues is a different deal than running a private shelter.
And no, sweeping all of this history under the rug isn’t the way to go here. If animals suffered needlessly under PAWS management, then the officials responsible need to be held accountable in a court of law as well as the court of public opinion.
Someday, all of this will seem like a distant memory. But we’re not quite there yet. And we won’t be until these criminal cases have been resolved.
Editorial: https://bit.ly/2oCJPik
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