Del Mar City Council Meeting Agenda Del Mar Council Chambers 2010 Jimmy Durante Blvd., Suite 100, Del Mar, California

Transcription

1 Del Mar City Council Meeting Agenda Del Mar Council Chambers 2010 Jimmy Durante Blvd., Suite 100, Del Mar, California December 18, 2017 City Council Meeting INFORMATION RECEIVED AFTER THE COUNCIL AGENDA WAS DISTRIBUTED ( Red Dots )

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4 1 December 18, 2017 Item 11 Henry Abarbanel 1110 Crest Road Del Mar, CA December 2017 Dear Members of the Del Mar City Council, This letter is a request to you to appoint another Councilmember to be our representative to SANDAG unless our present representative can see through his present party over county position on the origins and prospective strategies for addressing the climate change issues we face. The present representative, Councilmember Sinnott, is a friend and neighbor of mine. I treasure that. The recognition of the threat posed by human activity induced climate change to our City of Del Mar, to the region, the Nation, and the world is hardly news. Despite the irrefutable scientific evidence of this Mr. Sinnott was quoted yesterday by the Morning Report of Voice of San Diego: Del Mar Mayor City Councilmember Terry Sinnott was unanimously elected the new board chairman of the San Diego Association of Governments on Friday, taking the helm of the county's lead agency in charge of meeting state climate goals. But in a brief interview after his election, Sinnott declined to acknowledge the scientific consensus that climate change is caused by human activity and the burning of fossil fuels. If one begins the discussion of climate change by rejecting its origin, very little in the way of effective action to ameliorate and reduce its impact on the San Diego region can be expected. SANDAG is a critical regional agency in recognizing this threat and working to address it. Another person, who does recognize this critical problem, at the head of the agency would present a coherent regional focus on this important issue. There are many things that climate science does not know how to address; for example, will it rain 1.7 inches in Seagrove Park on December 16, 2021? However, let s remember that Isaac Newton published the foundations of quantitative modern science and technology 330 years ago in Nonetheless, there are many, many things which are not yet possible, using Newton s laws where they properly apply, to describe quantitatively in the world about us. It would be remarkably short-sighted to reject Mr. Newton because our existing technology restricts our ability to know everything about our classical world. I trust Mr. Sinnott still drives his scooter (he may also have a car), flies on airplanes, perhaps travels on ships, and does not doubt people went to the moon in Yet, Newtonian physics is incomplete after 330 years of intense effort to rectify that. I fear Mr. Sinnott, whose background as a sincere and productive executive at SDG&E provides the City of Del Mar with a thoughtful voice in addressing numerous practical issues for all of us, has been swept up in an indefensible political myth about our earth system, and should work with his many friends here in Del Mar to actually understand the relevant science. Del Mar was the home of Dave Keeling (also a core participant in creating our Community Plan) whose work provides key evidence that C02

5 2 December 18, 2017 Item 11 is rising, and whose son Ralph s work confirms the human origin of this. Both these solid results come from their scientific efforts, and many others work, at UCSD/Scripps Institution of Oceanography. If Mr. Sinnott can rise above his party before county stance, recognize the key requirement under California law, which he has sworn to uphold, to address climate change effects on his neighbors and constituents, the Council should consider in the future entrusting him with its voice on SANDAG. At present he does not represent Del Mar on this matter, and I urge you to assign him other regional responsibilities. For the record, an action of this kind is not unprecedented in Del Mar or other local jurisdictions. 20 years ago when a Councilmember refused to represent the Council s point of view on the North Coast Transit District, of which he was the selected head of the Board of Directors, he was assigned to other duties and another Councilmember took up the representation. Del Mar was certainly the beneficiary of that action. Many thanks for your attention, Former Del Mar Councilmember and Mayor Chair, State of California San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board Professor of Physics, UCSD

6 3 December 18, 2017 Item 11 December 17, 2017 Dear Mayor Worden, Deputy Mayor Druker, Councilmembers Haviland, Parks and Sinott I was greatly distressed to read the article from KPBS in which Councilmember Terry Sinnott said that climate change is a debatable issue that the board talks about. Council member Sinnott was being interviewed because he was just elected chair of SANDAG. This regional committee plays a major role in meeting the state climate goals, yet Mr. Sinnott does not even acknowledge the scientific fact that global warming is real, and that it is caused by human activity releasing greenhouse gases (GHG) into the atmosphere. One of the major sources of GHG comes from the burning of fossil fuels in transportation, and this lack of understanding of this basic fact by Mr. Sinnott is all the more concerning since SANDAG plays a major role in determining the balance between fossil-fuel based transportation for the region vs. increased public transit. Global warming is not a political issue, but a fact-based issue. I am very concerned that the Del Mar representative to SANDAG does not understand the basic scientific facts of climate change, yet SANDAG is charged with reducing GHG for San Diego County. In fact SANDAG is required, by SB375, to develop a Sustainable Communities Strategy that will reduce the GHG of San Diego County. Mr. Sinnott voted in favor of Del Mar s Climate Action plan in June 2016 yet he now is denying the validity of the overwhelming evidence regarding the use of fossil fuels in causing the catastrophic state of the environment that we find ourselves in now. Global warming and consistent GHG emissions lead to excessive wildfires that we have experienced recently in California not only in Santa Rosa, but in much more local areas, sea level rise, droughts, and extreme storms such as the major hurricanes the US experienced this fall. I hope that the council will either appoint another Council Member to SANDAG who understands the basic facts of global warming and the critical role that SANDAG has to reduce GHG in transportation areas, or that they will insist that Mr. Sinnott educate himself on the facts of global warming. SANDAG will provide major direction in future years into the decisions to use more public transit, more fuel efficient transportation modes vs more money spent on wider and bigger highways. I hope the council will make a sane decision in this matter. Sincerely, Ann Feeney, Ph.D. Chair, Sustainability Advisor Board

7 4 December 18, 2017 Item 11 December 17, 2017 Del Mar City Council RE: Item 11, December 18 th Council Meeting Dear Mayor Worden, Deputy Mayor Druker, Councilmembers Haviland, Parks & Sinnott. I write to express my concern about Councilmember Sinnott s comments regarding climate change as being a debatable issue. I was quite surprised and disappointed that Mr. Sinnott would take such a view in light of the overwhelming scientific evidence and consensus to the contrary (see below). Of course he is entitled to his personal view, but as a representative to SANDAG from Del Mar, saying in a public forum that climate change is debatable, clearly goes against Del Mar s Climate Action Plan, officially adopted by the Council on June 16 th, 2016, and for which Mr. Sinnott voted to approve. The recently released US National Climate Assessment Report, a consensus report from nine US government agencies and the official US position on climate change states: Global annually averaged surface air temperature has increased by about 1.8 F (1.0 C) over the last 115 years ( ). This period is now the warmest in the history of modern civilization. The last few years have also seen record-breaking, climate-related weather extremes, and the last three years have been the warmest years on record for the globe. These trends are expected to continue over climate timescales. This assessment concludes, based on extensive evidence, that it is extremely likely that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century. For the warming over the last century, there is no convincing alternative explanation supported by the extent of the observational evidence. In addition to warming, many other aspects of global climate are changing, primarily in response to human activities. Thousands of studies conducted by researchers around the world have documented changes in surface, atmospheric, and oceanic temperatures; melting glaciers; diminishing snow cover; shrinking sea ice; rising sea levels; ocean acidification; and increasing atmospheric water vapor. There is certainly room for discussion and debate about how best to mitigate and adapt to climate change, but to assert that climate change itself is debatable is very misleading, untrue and not appropriate for an official representative of Del Mar to SANDAG. Respectfully submitted. Alan Sweedler Member, Del Mar Sustainability Advisory Board

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