Thanks back to Dennis Liu for continuing this interesting discussion. I have some responses:
A. “the cost here is losing the possibility of having a real discussion on the merits of the matter” >> There can be no such cost, because no bylaw will pass later without ample public discussion and a vote at Town Meeting. If your point is that we should agree on bylaw text now, before we seek authority to adopt a bylaw, I’ll just say that many reasonable minds disagree with your position. B. “If we truly believe that it’s important for the STATE of Massachusetts to so do, then why would we not focus on doing THAT”. >>We are! Very important. Town-level efforts support state-level efforts. C. “instead of creating yet another disincentive for people who might consider living/working in Lincoln” >> I don’t believe this will create any such disincentive, in part because the cost impacts are so small, if any. D. “the estimate that up to a quarter of buildings in use three decades from now are yet to be built, even if true, ignores the problem that proponents otherwise tout – that we need to take action TODAY” >> No it does not ignore that. Every new building built now operating on fossil fuels is a mistake that digs our whole deeper, and the cumulative amount over coming decades is not trivial. That’s why we need to take action starting today. E. “wonder how many builders will be forced to install either electrical resistance heating or fossil fuel heating systems as a backup, due to heat pump limitations when faced with frigid winter temperatures here in Lincoln” >> Air-source electric heat pumps are available now that can handle the coldest Lincoln days without an alternative system as a backup. As a matter of cost optimization, some owners / builders nevertheless may choose to install a system that would be supplemented on rare days by some sort of electrical resistance heaters. F. “wind and solar combined generate *11% *of total electricity generation in the US, and that’s with MASSIVE subsidies” >> The continuing subsidies to the fossil fuel industry are much, much bigger. New wind and solar power is now so cost-effective that ISO-NE, our hidebound regional grid operator, is trying to block wind and solar power from winning "too many" contracts to feed into our regional grid because otherwise they will underprice & beat out traditional fossil-fuel-generated power. G. “solar and wind generation is at least a full human generation away” >> If you mean to completely replace all fossil-fuel-generated power with renewable energy, yes, maybe it will take 20 years. But that doesn't mean we need to wait for that to finish before electrifying housing and transportation can start. We can, and must, advance both in parallel. H. “why wouldn’t we want to frack for more natural gas right now”. Because we don’t need to (see above); it would be irrelevant to our regional grid (which is already less than 1% coal and oil); and its marginal improvement over coal and oil isn’t enough. Gas is the problem, not the solution. I. “thanks to the free market, free trade, the exponential growth of technological innovation and the spread of western-style democracy over the last two centuries, humanity has been doing GREAT” >> I pretty much agree with that trend description in terms of overall reduction in human suffering. However, that doesn’t mean we can ignore hard evidence in front of our eyes that some things now must change fast, or that happy trend will reverse. *Scientists agree that the next decade is crucial in substantially reducing our global-warming emissions.* So let’s get started. - Paul Shorb
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