10/2013 Tenino WA tabled Plastic Bag Ban Indefinitely

At the end of Oct'13, Tenino WA City Council has decided to tabled plastic bag ban indefinitely. OMG! I want to get down to my knee and thank God that finally a few Councilmen have cast doubt and called for reasons and investigations instead of blindly following the Pied Piper march and accepting the funky nonsensical claims. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Councilmen.

The original article has been removed.  The above link is a replacement.
Some quotes from the original article:

"At last week’s Tenino City Council meeting, Councilman Dave Watterson said he was in favor of the ban – until he started to delve into the issue.

“I’m probably one of the greener people in here. I try to do environmentally friendly things,” Watterson said. “But when you start doing some research – and I tried to look at a lot of sources, from tree-huggers to the plastic bag industry – from what I’m reading, paper bags are as bad or worse than plastic bags.”

“I’ve completely changed my mind on the whole plastic bag thing,” he said. “It sounds like a great thing, but the answer isn’t going to paper. People aren’t getting the whole story on what’s going on here.”

Reusable bags aren’t a great option either, he said. To see any environmental benefit, Watterson said a reusable bag must be used more than 180 times.

“It’s not as simple as what they show,” he said. “The alternatives are worse.”

And if you want more articles and videos on environmental issues, read my 8/13 blog: To Read and To Watch.

----------------------------------------------

I was once a much better green people, too. I recycled food scrap 2-3 times a week. I had to take out trash only once a week. Now that I no longer have paper bags for food scrap, all the food scrap ended in waste. These days, I have to take the trash out 2-3 times a week. Better?

Read more here: http://www.theolympian.com/2013/09/30/2750989/tenino-weighing-a-ban-on-plastic.html#storylink=cpy

11/5/13 Voters of Durango, CO Rejected Plastic Bag Fee

http://durangoherald.com/article/20131105/NEWS01/131109746/Voters-reject-grocery-bag-fee-

On 11/5/13, Voters of Durango, CO rejected the grocery bag fee with votes of 56% vs 44%.

“I'm just happy that the voters in Durango exercised some adult supervision on their extreme and juvenile City Council,” said Kristen Smith, part of the pro-repeal group No Durango Bag Tax. “We worked hard to defeat it, and would encourage other citizens to run for council who think voice of reason should be there to represent the people.”

Thank you, voters, for exercising your rights!
Thank you, No Durango Bag Tax volunteers, for putting it on the ballots.

The bag bans are based on myths and misrepresenatations perpetuated by environment non-profits.
Shame on them all, that they even have the guts to go to schools to mislead our children and high-schoolers.

The ban and fee are bad for:
- businesses: to bag customers purchases is the least of customer services that retailers should provide, especially when it come to discretionary shopping, which is for fun. If it is no fun anymore, why shop? All stores can close, we can all go home!

- residents: Many of us use plastic bags for trash and pet waste. Without them, we will have to buy the much thicker and bigger trash bags. Why is the later better?

- for environment. Plastic bags are the by-product of natural gas, not oil. And they take little to make. Verses paper bags which come from trees. From logging, debarking, chop & dice, add water to make pulp, squeeze water out and flatten to make paper, the whole process takes much more resources and energy and create more greenhouse gases. Why is paper better?

Read my 8/13 blog: To Read and To Watch, I have a collection of articles and videos.

Since Durango City Council is still mourning their loss, you might want to write to them to wake them up to the perspectives of businesses and citizens. They need to wake up from their stupor. At this moment, the only people who are talking and talking are the activists. The City Councils needs to hear from the public and the businesses. Speak up now, before you decide to vote them out. They need to be reminded why they are there in the first place. They are there not for the five of themselves, but for the citizens, who are on top of the organization chart that they might have forgotten. 56% of the citizen has spoken against it. So, please, wake up now, City Council.

This is their contact:
http://www.durangogov.org/index.aspx?nid=169

2013 Is the Year to Support / Donate to Market-Based Solutions

As year 2013 coming to an end, you will be getting a whole bunch of donation requests; calendars, stickers, labels; many of them from environment non-profits. Having suffered a full year or two through this “plastic bags killed thousands of marine lives including seabirds every single year” which is myth taking on the appeal of truth, seeing these funky environmental non-profits humming louder and louder, spreading myths in schools, city councils and state governments, it is time that we say enough is enough.

They, the vocal minority have been having too much fun. They have forgotten the words shame and truth.

It is time that we, the silent majority exercise our will and power, and put our money to work.

Tear off a piece of the calendar; send it back to the president with a note: we can no longer support your organization, if you help perpetuate myths and misrepresentations that are scientifically unsupportable. The bag bans make the retailers pay – for pissing off shoppers. Bagging customer purchases is the least of customer service retailers should provide. Else, the shoppers will just shut their wallets and stay home. They are making consumers pay. I have to buy plastic bags to line my trash bins. I had to argue with Safeway on why I need a “plastic produce bag” – not the “plastic shopping bag with handles” to wrap packages of meat that were leaking meat juice. Thanks to you all.

Media like KQED is asking for your year-end donation, too. It is time to tell them: we need to hear from the other sides; from the consumers and businesses. We do not assume that environment non-profits are angels. They are human. By nature; human has weakness. Human are bias, by the paradigm they grew up with, and by the limitation of their knowledge. We will not take whatever they say at face value. Give us the other side of the story, and we will decide which side is more right. We will support you only if you give us comprehensive stories; i.e. when the voices from both sides covered.

If you want to donate; it is time to support organizations that promote market-based solutions as listed below. The world is not black and white. We are dealing with usage of resources – they are by nature scarce. It is always about trade off. And priorities change over time, too; for we do not go all the way to solve a problem one hundred percent, with last few percents causing an exorbitant amount of money.  A lot of time, when it is good enough, we want to move on spending our precious money solving the next bigger problem; that is what market based solutions do. When we allow market to play out, organizations / businesses see the problems/opportunity will try to meet the needs in the most efficient way. Their reward is their very survival or profit. A lot of innovation / progress were driven by market-based solutions; such as the development of battery used in hybrid or electric cars. Products / solutions might take decade to improve; such is the case with battery. We do not solve a problem overnight with emotional appeal, or media sensation, or myths, or hypes. Development is a slow; gradual, decade-long commitment in continuous research and improvement, which finally deliver the superb products. 

Please support these organizations instead. Dig deep and donate the most that you could:

-   Washington Policy Center (www.washingtonpolicy.org)

-  Cascade Policy Institute, Portland – ran by John Charles who had ran The Oregon Environmental Council for 16 years, who grew disillusioned by the leftist ideological, comfortable, ineffective policies that hurt the environment (http://cascadepolicy.org)

-    Hoover Institution, Stanford University (www.hoover.org)
-  Reason Foundation, Los Angeles (www.reason.org)
-  Goldwater Institute, Arizona (https://goldwaterinstitute.org/) 
- Young America's Foundation (https://www.yaf.org/)
-   Bag the Ban! (www.bagtheban.com)

I challenge you read these books, and to gift them away as Christmas presents; to educate our people, to make them informed decision makers / citizens.

- Eco-fads: how the rise of trendy environment book is harming the environment, Todd Myers, 2011

- The Skeptical Environmentalist, by Bjorn Lomborg – Lomborg “using data from United Nation, Lomborg found the litany of environmental concerns so repeated in the media were flawed and exaggerated.”

- The Green Wave, Bonner Cohen – how the environmental non-profits channel hundred of millions of dollar each year to promote their causes

- The Honest Broker, Dr. Roger Pielke Jr – on the interplay of science and politics, how we tend to be most comfortable making decisions based on what is most comfortable (our personal values) vs. the least comfortable (complex scientific analysis)

- Green-Collar Jobs, Alan T. Durning, 1999

And books on how liberals are silencing free speech:
1. The Silencing: How the left is killing free speech, by Kirsten Powers
2. The Intimidation Game: How the left is silencing free speech, by Kimberley Strassel.
3. Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth, by Sharyl Attkisson.

Donate! Support a great cause!