Minneapolis goes ‘net-zero’ on climate

The City of Lakes adopts “ambitious” goals for global warming. Mild amusement follows.

Today, the City of Minneapolis adopted its most ambitious climate change goals, ever. The Star Tribune recaps the top five items, which were adopted by the City Council as part of a 96-page report. It’s all the usual, fashionable stuff: getting rid of natural gas appliances, more solar panels, more trees, “rain gardens.”

The upshot is to have the city reach “net-zero emissions” of carbon by the year 2050.

In a city plagued by surging crime and growing office vacancies (and plunging property values), you would think that global warming would be the least of the city’s problems. Guess again.

The plan will cost billions of dollars, according to the plan’s advocates. Yesterday on Twitter, I was poking fun at one of the smallest new costs under the plan, an extra $1 per month surcharge on residential electricity and natural gas utility bills. The Star Tribune reports on the plan,

Minneapolis leaders want to increase fees on residential and business electric and natural gas bills to help pay for the city’s plan to reduce its contribution to climate change.

The envisioned fee hikes would generate between $8 million and $10 million annually to pay for weatherizing homes, installing solar panels and other programs — resulting in a tripling of the city’s current spending on those items, Mayor Jacob Frey and a host of officials announced Wednesday.

My response to the plan was one of my catch phrases whenever I refer to Minneapolis, “Flee, Hurry.”

Imagine my surprise when one of my respondents was hizzoner himself, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. He tweeted from his personal Twitter account,

In the NPR article quoted by the Mayor, the public-radio outlet promotes the current thought that typical mid-summer weather means that southern red states (California excluded) are no longer habitable. NPR claims,

Across the country, heat waves are getting hotter, lasting longer and becoming more unpredictable. Jeff Goodell, the author of The Heat Will Kill You First, called it a dire consequence of climate change.

What I find curious is that the Mayor believes the only alternative to living in his dying city is to decamp to the Gulf Coast. It’s as if the surrounding suburbs of Minneapolis don’t exist.

Does his tweet mean that Minneapolis is responsible for southern heat waves? Or is the Minneapolis climate plan the cure?

I’m pretty sure that Florida and Texas don’t care, either way.