At its last meeting, the San Carlos City Council adopted a resolution supporting the Citizens Climate Lobby, a group promoting a bipartisan effort to combat climate change. If you’d like to learn more about them, check out citizensclimatelobby.org. It’s an interesting proposal.
The resolution marked the first time I recall the council acting on a matter that some would argue is not a local issue.
Now, personally, I think climate change is, in fact, a very local issue. If nothing else, a good chunk of east San Carlos will likely be under water before the city’s second centennial celebration. That may sound far away. But it’s within the lifetime of the kids I see playing in Laureola Park.
But let’s assume that climate change isn’t a local issue. Why shouldn’t the council exercise a leadership role on an important-but-not-local matter? It’s not as if the council is busy. The last year has seen frequent jokes about setting new records for finishing meetings early. Yet clearly some of my colleagues who voted for the measure thought doing so was odd; they felt obligated to explain why they were even considering voting for it.
Some councilmembers argue that taking positions on “non-local” matters can harm the community, because they’re divisive. That’s certainly a possibility. But does it matter? Not all controversies are created equal. While there are San Carlans who doubt climate change is an issue, all the evidence I’ve seen shows they are in the minority. Representing the community’s majority voice would seem to be a reasonable thing for a council to do.
Besides, decisions made by political bodies are inherently divisive. That’s why those bodies exist: to air differences, seeking whatever common ground exists, but still have decisions made. There’s no way you can take a position on any but the most innocuous matter without being at odds with someone’s opinion. After all, there are nearly 30,000 points of view in San Carlos!
What’s so bad about people expressing differing points of view about matters affecting their community? Our civilization is robust; it’s not going to collapse because you and I disagree. But it very well might collapse if we don’t understand our differences, and figure out how to live with them. Because that kind of ignorance encourages brooding and delusional paranoia, thereby disconnecting us. And when enough of us are disconnected from each other ... .
But that’s a big picture perspective. There’s a more pragmatic reason for a council to avoid taking positions: every time one of us votes for something some voter doesn’t agree with, we risk losing that vote. Do enough of that, and it gets hard to get re-elected.
But so what? If the community doesn’t agree with, or isn’t willing to accept, enough of the choices I make on its behalf, both it and I will be better off if I find something else to do. That’s true for any member of the council.
We don’t allow the vast majority of public decisions to be made out of the public eye, because transparency leads to better decisions. We have a similar, but less well recognized, interest in hearing our elected officials’ views on matters that affect our community. In both cases, it is so we can judge them by their choices.
There need be no concern about “politicizing” what is and always was an inherently and fundamentally political body. “Stick to your knitting” may sound like a good philosophy, but the most dedicated and accomplished knitters I know would think it absurd to never do anything other than knit. It’s OK to look beyond “purely” local issues.
And who knows? Maybe if we get used to talking about our differences, we’ll relearn both how to find common ground, and how to live alongside each other despite those differences. That would benefit us all, because the greatest periods in human history grew not out of monolithic sameness, but cross-fertilizing diversity.
Mark Olbert is a member of the San Carlos City Council. The views expressed here are his own.
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(6) comments
Cross-fertilizing diversity? What the heck does that even mean. You now know what politicians do when they have too much time on their hands.
Mr. Oberg and other local elected officials. Sanctimonious, virtue signaling is divisive. Keep your work focused on what you are elected for. There are other platforms to take up these concerns that fall outside your jurisdiction.
Thanks for taking action on this. Sea level rise is a very local issue that require a national response. There is only so much that San Carlos can do locally to have a direct impact. Encouraging our national leaders to take action, and telling them that this is important to our city helps to raise awareness of something that should be a bipartisan issue. The science is settled, we all need to work together to create solutions, and a price on carbon is the simplest way to dramatically reduce our carbon emissions.
Thank you Council member Olbert for having the courage to not only champion issues that might elicit controversy but stand strongly for something that is a local issue. As you mentioned this will be a very local issue when east San Carlos is flooding the way East Palo Alto does now with major storm surges and tides. Climate change is not in the future. It affects and will affect all of us differently. Our citizenry is sadly uninformed of the broad impact our climate situation currently has and will have within the lifetime of our children and grandchildren. When the coastal areas flood, what will happen to home values? Will FEMA finance flood damage in flood zones? We know that answer. A one million dollar home will be worth zero at that point. Where will coastal residents go? Into the hills? How long will it take before insurance companies stop insuring our neighbors' homes? How about waste filtration plants that sit at Bay level? Will the homes in the hills be able to flush their waste when those plants flood. It is time to take the long view my fellow neighbors. We think we pay too much property tax now, wait until our city and county need to rebuild our infrastructure to adapt to sea level rise. Yes its scary. No we don't want to think about it. It will get quite costly the longer we avoid dealing with it. So thank you again for raising our awareness on this issue and to the Council for making it a local issue by passing this resolution. Pressuring our Senators and Representatives to legislate a tax on carbon emissions is one action each of us can take with a simple letter. Time is of the essence on this issue so if we act now, we can start turning the tide (no pun intended.) The rhetoric of climate skeptics seem to soothe us by telling us this isn't such a big deal. It is tempting to want to believe them rather than the experts... but we need to confront the reality and take action before our action becomes insufficient to meet the challenge.
As much as we would like to imagine otherwise, the Bay Area is already changing. Look around: wildfires are happening year-round. Extreme heat waves are becoming more common. These are just some of the climate change impacts we're already experiencing in 2018. These impacts don't distinguish between Republican and Democrat. As time passes, we can expect even even more local livelihoods and businesses to be affected. I sincerely thank Councilman Olbert and the entire San Carlos City Council for doing their part to raise awareness of Citizens' Climate Lobby and their carbon fee-and-dividend proposal. Let's follow their bold example and work together to champion climate solutions.
Thanks to council member Olbert and the City Council of San Carlos for calling our congressional representatives to take action on climate by considering CCL's fee and dividend proposal. Sens. Kamala Harris and Diane Feinstein and Reps. Nancy Pelosi, Jackie Speier, and Anna Eshoo are all aware of the threats that climate change are posing to our peninsula and are clearly supportive of action. They need, however, to up their games on this and not defer leadership on this issue other members of Congress. Our peninsula is among the most vulnerable regions in the country to sea level rise. If our members of Congress aren't in the forefront of this effort, we can hardly expect others to take up the issue. To see more action on this from our representatives, we need to contact them and express our concern. Otherwise, they will attend to other matters.
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