In defense of Colorado Springs, Pt II
Earlier this month, I told you about the attacks on my great city of Colorado Springs by libs infuriated that a city government under economic strain would dare to cut services instead of imposing knee-jerk tax hikes.
Well, the Springs-bashers are at it again. And my friends at the Colorado Springs Gazette editorial board have a great retort to the lefties having a snit fit over city officials turning off some street lights to save money. Enlightenment:
It’s supposed to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad thing. Colorado Springs city officials turned off one-third of the city’s streetlights because of recession-era budget cuts and a failed tax proposal. The darkened lights have been fodder for a decidedly negative media campaign that went national, casting aspersion on conservative voters.
Yet the media celebrate an annual event called Earth Hour as a nod to global warming. Americans are asked to turn out lights for one hour on a specified evening in order to help save Mother Earth from the ravages of wanton energy consumption. Here are some typical headlines associated with Earth Hours gone by:
“An hour to help save the earth” — New York Times
“Earth Hour hopes to shed light on climate” — USA Today
“An hour of darkness for the planet” — Huffington PostThis year, Earth Hour falls on March 27. Expect fanfare from the media and government officials as the sacred event draws near. Schools will rally around the cause, urging students to tell their parents to turn out lights.
For the past two years, efforts to get Colorado Springs residents to participate in Earth Hour have disappointed organizers. Imagine this year is different. Pretend 100 percent of Colorado Springs households will turn out the lights for Earth Hour. Based on data provided by Colorado Springs Utilities, the event would save roughly $1,500 in energy. By contrast, the city’s reduction in streetlights will save $3,287 on March 27. Unlike full Earth Hour participation, streetlight reduction isn’t a pipe dream. It will happen for sure, as it does each night. Earth Hour will never achieve full participation and would have less than half the value of our city’s streetlight reduction if it did.
The city’s streetlight reduction will, beyond question, save the city $1.2 million worth of energy this year. If we had Earth Hour every night for all of 2010, and each night the event had 100 percent participation, the program would save roughly $574,500 in consumption — less than half what the city will absolutely save with streetlight reduction.
City officials will save considerably more energy in 2010, just by reducing streetlights, than Earth Hour will save throughout the entire country…
…Recessions are tough. But trying times have a way of making survivors smarter and stronger. Shutting off excessive lighting is just plain old-fashioned smart. Colorado deserves an award.
Amen! But in the glazed eyes of the global warming cultists, only environmentally correct conservation — no matter how measly in comparison to economically necessary conservation — merits praise.
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Categories: Enviro-nitwits,Politics
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With the global warming cultists, the lights are on, but nobody’s home!
Brilliant.
Turn off enough artificial lighting and people might realize there are lights in the sky that are more beautiful than anything made by man.
I know what you mean, as a casual astronomer I really hate that after the Big Dipper and Orions Belt, there’s not much else to see with all the city lighting. A new Target and Lowes went in down the street from me and has made it much worse.
Best way of dealing with lefty fascist greenies is to ignore them and make the tough decisions to cut budgets.
They should be glad the lights are being cut rather than however many cush loafer backsliding city jobs with benefits and “retirement” slush funds that will eventually bankrupt that city like it is many other American municipalities.
End the liberal public service job gravy train and save the nations cities, states, and federal government.
Pass a law that requires local, state and federal pensioners to forfeit their pensions if they go to work full time in order to vest themselves in additional pension earning jobs.
One person, one pension.
Bear1909 out.
It’s not so much what you do as why you do it that counts to them. What they want is for you to willingly comply and obey them.
Earth hour purpose is not to actually save energy or money. It is to bring awareness to the need to save money and energy, and making people aware of something is much more important than actually doing that something. That is the critical difference between those who legislate or administrate, and those who do manual labor. That is why you conservatives so uncool. Like, whatever!
It’s all Gimmie, Gimmie, Gimmie. Do people get any more self indulgent then this? Well there are those people making man made islands over in Dubai how does that effect the environment?
Man Made island? How about the indoor ski slope? http://www.skidubai.com/ How about the world’s largest air conditioner? http://archive.arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=88325&d=17&m=10&y=2006
Including military retirees?
When I was raising my kids, I spent countless hours trying to get them to participate in my save the earth campaign by turning off the lights when they leave a room.
Now I hear them making the same argument to my grand kids. So we’re a multi generational save the earth family.
Go Colorado Springs. Cutting spending in a budget crunch is how most hard working American families handle difficult times.
Hah. You can’t find anyone dumber than a “save the Earth!” loon.
Very controversial, the thought of trying to cut money out of a budget… I guess CO Springs is too stupid and conservative to buy a money printing press or plant money trees.
There is a safety issue that no one is bringing up. Everyone knows that when you enter a dark place, you might get eaten by a grue. That is why the lights must remain on.
seriously, what’s the point of saving the earth if everyone gets eaten by grues.
I propose we shut down the entire Federal Government for one week every quarter. We will save billions in overhead not to mention what we’ll save due to the absence of legislation and regulatory tampering. Sweet relief. Better than a BM as grandma would say.
Bear, a simpler plan is that all americans are made to be in social security, which follows you from military to civilian jobs, and 401K plans for all americans. No more teachers union pension which if underfunded by the school board falls back on WAIT FOR IT… The taxpayer. Congress, military, gubmint workers, big unions, EVERYONE is in social security and only social security. Then our pols will take care of it, and our present day non participants will keep their pols honest.
IF anyone is wandering what exactly are grues:
The grue is a sinister, lurking presence in the dark places of the earth. Its favorite diet is progressive liberals, but its insatiable appetite is tempered by its fear of light. No grue has ever been seen by the light of day, and few have survived its fearsome jaws to tell the tale.
Kudos to the Springs for doing this! They are decidedly more of a conservative place than many other Colorado cities along the Front Range and I miss living and working there. It is telling that a sane and responsible response to not having enough money coming in, i.e. cut spending, is causing wailing and moaning among the liberals there, who are truly like children who have never grown up.
Looney leftwing liberals and environMENTALS are all about intentions and motivations, not results. Since Colorado Springs intentions is to save money, not Mother Earth, they are wrong for turning off lights.
LOL…good for them for pointing this out. I can just see it now all the lefties must be tying themselves in kots over this as they cant decide how to react…
I only wish our state legislature (WA ST) would listen to the will of the people. They are in the process of overturning I960 that requires a 2/3 majority to raise taxes. This initiative has been passed four time now in overwhelming numbers. Of course this means new taxes are coming. Some of the propesed taxes are as follows:
a pollutant tax = a tax on each barrel of crude oil that is refined in the state
A sweet drink tax = a tax, per container, on any drink that contains sugar other than natural fruit sugars(i.e. soda, kool aid, etc)
A sales tax increase (we are at 8.5% statewide and most localities have their own sales tax on top of that)
A bottled water tax = unlike the seet drink tax, this tax is 1 penny per ounce of water in a bottle. So if a bottle of water has 12 oz it has a 12 cent tax on it. There has been some computations done on the bulk bottled water that Cosco sells. Here is the results:
a case of bottle water contains 35 bottles with 16.9 oz each. The caase costs 4.79 at present. The total ounces of water the case contains is 591.5. rounded up the tax will be $5.92 per case. This brings the new cost of a case of water to $10.71 a case.
RedDog: Much too little. I propose we allow the Federal Government (DoD excluded) to only work one month a quarter and they only get paid and they only accumulate their pension for that month. They have 120 days a year to do their federal job meaning they will have to focus on JUST the important stuff.
The rest of the time they are on their own. If they want more income, they will have to work for it like the rest of us… “Welcome to Wal-Mart!” has a nice ring, wouldn’t you agree?
As long as the dimmed streetlights in question are not compromising safety, I don’t what all the libby fussing is about. Don’t these people have brain-transplant operations coming up?
Truesoldier, water is the new oil. $10.71 a case comes out to about $2.50 per galon. Maybe one day we will be buyng our water from the sheiks.
Haha — I live in the Springs and I discussed this “event” with my kids last year. We decided to turn on every light in the house for that hour and actually turned on some Christmas lights in the yard. We had a blast — the lesson, of course, is to poke fun at the liberal left habit of “raising awareness” for their crazy cause of the month.
Colorado Springs: Conservative and eco friendly by default and the weenies are STILL not happy. OK let us compromise: turn on those one third lights to appease the weenies and turn off another third to be weird/eco friendly.
These people would complain if you hanged them with a new Hemp rope.
What if we used a re-cycled Hemp rope?
Mr. Revere, may I introduce you to the U.S Senate and House of representatives?
Not to even mention the C.H.U.D. and the Morlocks!
Why aren’t you using solar power at night?! Why do you hate the earth? Why do you hate children and polar bears?
Safety is a valid concern. Meanies definitely live in the shadow’s.
Fortunately there is a solution to this: flashlights. Now I’m not proposing that everyone in Colorado City carry a flashlight. Instead, mount it under the barrel of your handgun. These tactical lights are really very excellent at illuminating your target for you.
If you can afford a unit that includes a laser-sight, all the better: you no more want to waste ammunition than you do electricity…
Saw some NJ figures recently. A 49 year old state retiree had paid in $124,000 and the state was obligated to pay him $3.3 million and another $500,000 in health benefits. No private company has defined benefits anymore, we need to dump it from government jobs.
Well done Colorado Springs! Your restraint is commendable, I wish more local governments would follow your lead. Well done!
The pagan earth worshipers are just pathetic nitwits who wouldn’t know right from wrong if it were to slap them in their unwashed faces!
I’m trying to find out the phone number for who to call to get the street light on my corner turned off.
March 27 , marked it down. I will have more lights on than usual !
Darlin’ — I think you are giving them way too much credit! They don’t think about how to react. They only react. If the libs ever really thought about the things they say / do, their heads would explode.
These eco-nuts are whack-jobs of the first magnitude!
“Turn off the lights when we ask you to: good. Turn off the lights when we don’t ask you to: bad!”
It is all about control!
But I think we should test zorro’s theory. We should line up all the eco-nitwits in Colorado Springs and start slapping them on their “unwashed faces” and see if they can recognize right from wrong, no matter how long it takes. After all, who can put a price on science…
That is exaclty what I am talking about. It is fun watching their reaction as they have no idea which way to turn as it is sooo easy to confuse them. Take for example a personal experience I had with one of these ultra lefties at the Seattle airport. I was coming home for R&R from Iraq in the summer of 2004. The presidential election campaign was in full swing and the lefties had gotten permission to put up anti Bush and Chenney signs in the baggage claim area of the airport.
I was in my DCU’s and when one of these college age girls saw me she made a bee-line to confront me. I knew what was coming and welcomed it with open arms.
She came right up to me and called me a baby killer (gee how 60′s of her).
So I looked her in the eye and told her, “I am sorry, you must be mistaking me for someone else….I don’t beleive in abortion.”
She was so stunned that the conversation ended there, though I did have a couple elderly couples come up and give me a pat on the back and thank me for my service…and the great comeback.
I love Colorado Springs but dang it gets cold there. I went to a football game there a few years ago at the Academy. Dang it’s cold!
Priceless…
Every city and state needs to be making lists of services and programs now offered that can either be nixed completely or reduced. Every city needs to place a freeze on expansions of any programs within those local governments unless it’s of vital importance to maintain health, fire, and police. Colorado Springs should be praised, not ostracized. We are spending like the bills will never come due, and I commend any effort to reduce costs.
LOL!! That’s beautiful! I, too, thank you for your service — as well as for your quick thinking!
Haha… Wham!
Thank God one of the streetlights turned off was the one shining through my window at night
My city dammit.
Love it or leave it, hypocrites.
If it is similar to a nearby town, they have a street light ever other pole on every street. The next town over has a street light at every three or four poles in high traffic areas and a street light at every intersession in low traffic areas. In the low traffic areas they will install lights only where conditions warrant, such as narrow curved sections of roadway, etc. In both towns the crime rates are about the same.
There should be a huge prize for the person who invents an network connected traffic light controller (with proper security, of course) that will allow the city to change which 1/3 of the lights are out at any given time based on random numbers.
It’s dark now. Will it still be dark when you are in a most compromising position Mr. Crook?
{^_^}
I too enjoyed my time living in The Springs. I graduated from UCCS before the libs discovered it. CS is a great town that has grown a lot but still has a smaller city feel to it. I am glad to know that there are still folks w/ common sense who live there. I hope the City leaders continue to fight the Progressives/Communists that are obviously trying to get a foothold in that great American city.
It is a well known fact that if a conservative says or does something….it’s wrong. But if a liberal says or does that same thing, it is a moment of brilliance highlighting the wonders of “higher thinking” liberals.
Here’s to “right” thinking Colorado Springs officials. Cities and towns all over this country should consider similar plans and implement them where appropriate. They can pass any savings on to homeowners in the form of property tax rebates.