Dear Citizens and Elected Officials, and If It May Please the Court:
I had no prior intent, your Honor, in even “being there,” much less voting “No” on the annual draft Maryland Climate Change Commission Report today.
I recognize, Sir, that I’ve committed a serious offense against the favored public demeanor of Governor Hogan and his Environmental Secretary, Benjamin Grumbles, if not against the long standing persona of the Free State: amiable Maryland. We’ll be “civil” to each other here until the waves of Sea Level Rise drown us, starting with the Eastern Shore and all its little manure generating chickens being raised for well...I’d better stop, I’m in enough trouble. Sorry ...
All I can plead your honor, is that my impatience with the status quo, the slow pace of change, and the alarms sounded in October of 2018, in the UN’s IPCC report, made me do it, with the Maryland Draft itself citing the urgency time and time again. And then not delivering much of anything at all...
May I plead that therefore I was incited?
And further, in a plea for leniency, you Honor, I would only note that my vote didn’t actually count, me being a mere citizen “observer,” not allowed a Commission Members Only vote, and in all likelihood, not supposed to be there at all, but legally that’s a problem for the Commission, since it was an “open public meeting” by phone. Once there, I couldn’t be thrown out easily. And so after the formal members had announced their attendance, I stated mine, Bill of Rights from Frostburg, Western Maryland.
And after each of the officials voted, I said how I would vote if it counted, supporting the Sierra Club letter of November 9th, and siding with Senator Paul Pinsky, the only public no vote, via his aide.
All this trouble started yesterday when a good conservationist out here in Western Maryland gave us a head’s up about the Draft Report, and Thursday’s meeting and the call in number and code; I have no idea if it was supposed to be public, didn’t see a word on the letter going either way, and when I called to check out my possible participation, I wasn’t barred.
But your honor, I have to confess, I was more polite in person today than I was yesterday when I wrote this to my colleagues and other interested parties:
Dear Western MD Green New Dealers - and other interested parties: I've just finished reading the attached documents and I have the following comments and recommendations: We should support David Smedick's letter (For the Sierra Club) to the Climate Change Commission, which strongly criticizes the lack of substantive proposals in the Mitigation Working Group's output over the past few years. We should highlight the fact that although the Draft Report of the Commission repeatedly emphasized the urgency of the IPCC report from October, 2018, the one that has galvanized so many around the world, its actions hardly match what the IPCC called for. After all, we can't even get our own schools on a mandatory alternative energy program, or the next logical target, school buses. I was reminded of that by my own personal interaction at a Climate Commission hearing at the Appalachian Labs - 2-3 years ago. Clearly my call for the state to act with decisiveness first through agencies under its jurisdiction and financing authority (in good part) - public schools - raised alarms with the recipient, the acting Commission Chairman at the time. I could just picture him with a pipe, in a leather chair at a faculty lounge, an hour glass on the table for the two minutes marking my allotted time. Let's refresh our memories with this: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/07/climate/ipcc-climate-report-2040.html Here's the first paragraph which is etched in my memory along with the 20,000 structures burned in Paradise, California in a half day's calamity:
"INCHEON, South Korea — A landmark report from the United Nations’ scientific panel on climate change paints a far more dire picture of the immediate consequences of climate change than previously thought and says that avoiding the damage requires transforming the world economy at a speed and scale that has “no documented historic precedent.”"
It almost goes without saying that the MD Commission draft, while criticizing the Trump presidency's actions does not mention the Green New Deal, which might, just might supply the funds to actually do things that this MD Commission only talks and studies about, most of MD's discretionary spending already committed to schools for other policy purposes. I also just Googled some other personalities and events that are on the minds of us looking at the Extinction Rebellion, Afterburn, Drawdown and on and on...Greta Thunberg. Didn't turn up any references, though. Maryland seems to be stuck in a different time frame, a time warp that translates to "in good time" - always leading me to ask "What Age are we In?" https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/11/10/1897553/-What-Age-are-We-In-The-Age-of-Inequality-Thus-the-Tectonic-Plates-of-Politics-are-Shifting I've been on the verge of saying, to myself mostly, that the Maryland I've lived in for nearly fifteen years is incapable of producing someone like Greta Thunberg, due to its own unique history, and temperment preferences. No wonder the young Frederick Douglas escaped to New England. He's allowed "back in" at FSU to pay homage to his old age swing tour in Western MD, stripped of policy content and meaning, a "celebrity" with the fire safely banked out. The dallying of this damned Commission is further evidence of that. Best,
Now your Honor, I know I haven’t done myself any good at all by relaying this letter, and about all I can plead further in my own defense is that others have thought, just like me: wouldn’t it be a fiscally prudent long range action to bring as many feasible Maryland public schools onto cheaper, safer, cleaner alternative energy, mainly solar, but there are other options too...a positive capital investment that might be funded by a state Green Bank, and paying for its loans or grants over the years, like the old RFC in the New Deal. Here’s just a glimpse of this reasoning from way back in August of 2015, from the Solar Foundation: www.thesolarfoundation.org/…
So what I’m saying here your Honor, if you’re going to lock me up for impertinence, you’ve got to jail them too, and maybe the old Tides Foundation staff.
I don’t like to play this role of public gadfly, your honor. In reality, I’m nothing more than poor white trash out here in the Appalachians, and my teeth are going bad because Medicare...well...I’d better stop now…
Sincerely,
Bill of Rights
Frostburg, MD
PS There was one other citizen who spoke up, a public “attendee,” who agreed with my comments and Sierra Club cite, and voted NO as well.
I hope we can share the same cell so I can meet him.
Will someone please alert the ACLU in Annapolis