Written by Nicholas Vetrisek
Last week, the San Diego City council declared a symbolic “climate emergency.” City Councilwoman Jennifer Campbell sponsored the declaration and said that San Diego needs to make more progress regarding climate change.
“Climate change in San Diego is not a what-if, it’s a what-now,” she pleaded. “Sea levels are already nine inches higher in San Diego in the last 100 years of record. It’s well past time to sound the alarm.”
So in San Diego, a city that has a massive homeless population, an ongoing illegal immigration crisis, laughably poor city services, and now a coronavirus outbreak, the most important thing the City Council found to focus on was something that the city has already made major progress on. So much progress, in fact, that emissions have been reduced by 24 percent over the last decade, far exceeding the official goal of 15 percent.
City Councilman Scott Sherman voting against the resolution, noting that non-binding resolutions are symbolic and non-binding.
“I don’t vote for non-binding resolutions,” Sherman said. “We should be doing things with tangible, measurable goals.”
At the end of the day, we are looking at a fraction of a fraction of one percent of emissions, meanwhile San Diego is dealing with major issues that the City Council can actually address.
There are many issues plaguing San Diego, but the climate is not one of them. Focusing on symbolic climate change resolutions distracts from things that actually matter to San Diegans, such as improving homelessness and having roads that are actually fit to drive on. This declaration is a cheap political ploy and a disservice to San Diegans that want real problems solved.
