kansas's self destruct button a bill to outlaw sustainability

My Dad and Mom moved to Coffeyville KS in the 1970s when I was in the Marines. At the time, the town had a paint factory, refinery, and other businesses. But as my brothers grew up, the town, the whole area lost the 'best and the brightest.' As they lost brains, they also lost innovation, the plants closed along with their ability to compete. Economic poverty rapidly follows intellectual poverty.

If you want to be a big fish in a small pool, go to Kansas. But you'll soon find your ability to grow stops.

Bob Wilson

 

I guess this may be tied to opposing UN "Agenda 21". This has led to legislation at the local level and at least considered in other state-level?

The idea is that the UN will tell you what to do (like legislate towards sustainability) and some people don't like that.

 

Might as well outlaw the teaching of critical thinking while they're at it.
Some of you might know what I refer to.

 

...do they tax Hybrids yet in Kansas?

 

No, they just stab them with pitchforks and burn them on a pile of corn husks.

 

Why bother? Doesn't sound like there are getting a lot of that there.

 

Bizzare. Read the bill, it's only one page long and quite entertaining. It really looks like an April Fools joke (or beer bet) gone nuclear, not real legislation. Here is the part I like:

(2) "sustainable development" means a mode of human development in which resource use aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but also for generations to come, but not to include the idea, principle or practice of conservation or conservationism.

 

How are they NOT saying, "We want to kill our own grandchildren."

 

They are saying that. Driving while intoxicated is illegal, but clearly legislating while intoxicated is not.

 

Wow... Maybe the south should just break off and do their own thing. (And I include the vast majority of the midwest in "the south" because it is not a geographical reference, but a political one)

 

It never occurred to me that TREB was a Kansas state legislator!

Icarus

 

Re: Sustainability- I was considering developing more professional expertise in this area, but as I got closer to the topic, I realized the movement is getting into more fine detail than I had in mind. For example, I am worried about how mankind deals with loss of phosphorous as an element, whereas the movement is worried about the type of ink used on packaging etc. Also many (blue) states banning fossil fuels for future electric power generation (good luck) whereas I would see improved fossil use as sustainable. So for now I want to pursue my own idea of sustainability.

EDIT: Instead of banning fossil fuels, I should say: effectively pledging to ban fossil fuel for future power production by legislatively favoring renewable power generation.

 

Well, I think what you mean is improved fossil fuel use buys us time to make sutainable cheaper while at the same time reducing pollution and resource conflicts. Very often idealists see pragmatists as an enemy.

 

Good points. I am very concerned about the polarization in our scoiety re: energy etc.
The so-called Daly Rules of Sustainability call for slowed-down use of resources which are finite. But the rules also call for stopping any pollution that is destroying the planet. So if you say CO2 is destroying the planet, then slowed-down use of fossil fuels is unacceptable...must be totally left in the ground. I am not there. But to some extent there is common ground between slowed-down use and outright ban.

 

Sustainability is, at heart, a very simple concept. People generally make too much of it. Simply put, Sustainability is the ability to continue forever what you are currently doing. Thus fossil fuel usage (or use of any finite resource) can't be sustainable. However, no one believes we are currently sustainable, so you and they are arguing about how to do the transition (at least I hope you are, rather than, say Kansas). CO2 on the other hand is NOT an issue of a finite resource. It is a cycle with some amount being added and some removed from the atmosphere all the time. For that, we 'merely' need to keep that in balance. Adding or subtracting without end, will kill us all, that simple.

Nor is compromise a reasonable concept in this situation. You can't argue with the laws of nature. Fall off a cliff and you get 9.8 m/sec^2 acceleration, you wanting 0.1 has no bearing on the problem. 'Common ground' is this case is coming up fast.

So forget the rules. Ask yourself, "if everyone does what I am doing, can we keep doing it forever, or am I killing my great grand daughter?"

 

And these people get two votes in the US Senate, same as California. Sheesh.

 

New motto on the Kansas License plate, "Kansas - The Stupid State!

Cross off Kansas as possible retirement state!

 

Kansas is also going pretty much all in on 'knife rights' (yes there is a knife rights website). If the governor signs, that will be your go-to state for switchblades and throwing stars. Perhaps you've been having trouble purchasing such things?

HB 2033 | Bills and Resolutions | Kansas State Legislature

Not the only state considering such, we need to say. Nor the only state working on 'human life begins at fertilization' legislation.

The Associated Press: Sweeping anti-abortion bill goes to Kansas gov.

Wouldn't want to ignore the zygote in the room.

 

You know, this might solve another problem.

My Mom and late-Dad were frustrated by locals who blocked their plan development of affordable housing. Maybe the best answer is . . . a wind farm!

Initially just sell the electricity to the neighborhoods around the farm. But setup an arc furnace and buy scrap metal (a lot of scrap metal in a farming area.) Reduce it to pig iron and steel and sell it off. Yeap, kinda 'in your face Kansas!'

Bob Wilson