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Letter to the editor

Seminole has cool response to global warming measure

A split City Council declines to support a resolution by the U.S. Conference of Mayors Climate Protection Agreement.

By ANNE LINDBERG
Published June 1, 2005

SEMINOLE - It's a fairly common happening at council meetings across Florida: A resolution from the League of Cities or similar group comes to city officials for a vote of support.

Generally, a favorable vote is a slam dunk.

But that wasn't the case at last week's Seminole council meeting. By a 4-3 vote, the council declined to support a resolution by the U.S. Conference of Mayors Climate Protection Agreement.

Specifically, the resolution urged cities to "take actions to reduce global warming pollution."

Why did they turn it down?

A council majority was not sure whether there really is such a thing as global warming or the greenhouse effect.

"I'm not so sure I want to be part of a protection agreement (for a problem) I'm not so sure exists," council member Dan Hester said. "One thing for sure is that the standards that would have to be met . . . would be extremely costly."

Council member John Counts agreed that, like Hester, he had done some of his own research about the issue. And he, too, found conflicting information.

"There is opinion out there that this is the way the world works," Counts said. To support the resolution and Kyoto Protocol, to which the resolution referred, would be to penalize developed nations over undeveloped countries, he said.

The Kyoto Protocol, or Kyoto Accord, is an international treaty in which countries that sign it agree to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases they emit if the other countries also do so. So far, 141 countries have signed it. The United States has not.

Joining Hester and Counts in the vote to defeat the resolution were the other men on the council, Bob Matthews and Jimmy Johnson.

The women, Mayor Dottie Reeder and council members Janet Long and Patricia Hartstein, voted in favor of the resolution.

In voting against the resolution, the four were saying they disagreed with the findings on which the resolution was based. Among those findings listed in the resolution:

"The Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change, the international community's most respected assemblage of scientists, is clear that there is no longer any credible doubt that climate disruption is a reality and that human activities are largely responsible for increasing concentrations of global warming pollution."

Documented cases of climate disruptions include an increase in the sea level and a decrease in the thickness of Arctic ice.

Climate changes will increase the risk of floods, droughts, storms, smog and heat waves.

The United States produces about 25 percent of the world's pollutants, but has less than 5 percent of the world's population.

State and city governments, Democrat and Republican political leaders, and many companies have agreed to reduce emissions that contribute to the greenhouse effect and global warming.

So far, 112 mayors have signed the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement.

[Last modified June 1, 2005, 00:38:18]