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By Shelli Dawdy

Just when I thought I could not possibly ever be surprised at what might come out of my television, I was reminded that my brain is simply not wired to conceive of the endless number of nonsensical ideas politicians will attempt to implement while we’re all looking the other way.

I really should know better when it comes to politicians below the federal level, most especially if they are for gigantic government, since it has become clearer and clearer it takes something of monumentally stupid proportions to get people to pay any attention all to what they are doing. (Yes, it’s the arena I am thinking of.)

So, state, county, and local officials have come to believe they can run nearly totally amok – therefore, they very often do. Recognizing this fact, then, I should prepare to see just about anything on the local evening news.

On Monday evening, Lincoln’s ABC affiliate, KLKN, ran a story covering the press conference held by Lincoln’s Mayor, Chris Beutler. I have embedded the video…for your viewing…pleasure? at the end of this article.

What took me totally off guard is that our Mayor has voluntarily opted our city into a capping of emissions and we’re “investing” money in an infrastructure to capture methane gas, which will be more than paid back by the income generated from the wonderful carbon credits achieved through this new methane program.

EXCUSE ME…What’s this about CARBON CREDITS?

Like any normal American following political events, my husband looked quite confused at this revelation. “Carbon credits?” he asked me puzzled, “What’s he talking about?”. Eyes narrowing, I was more focused on the partially visible sign behind the Mayor and Director of Public Works. All that is visible is a “recovery.gov” logo and and some letters, including part of a word ending in “ABLE”.

Recognizing some of what was going on, I knew the “ABLE” was the ending of the word “Sustainable”. We have been looking into this whole issue for months and working on how best to disseminate information on this site about this phenomenon known as “Sustainable Development“. To date, we’ve only published one article on the topic, “Big Brother In Your Trash Can. Crazy, Right? Wrong.” It’s a lot to digest. When one examines city planning, “green jobs”, certain recycling programs, and even issues like pushes for funding maternal child health of all things, this phrase just keeps cropping up. And it’s not just in Lincoln, Nebraska, it’s literally global.

It sounds like a wonderful thing, of course. Who doesn’t want development that is sustainable, after all? When one starts to look into the matter, however, it becomes clear fairly quickly that your property rights, your liberty and mine is likely not sustainable with this agenda. And it is literally, an agenda. It is part of the United Nations Agenda 21.

I do understand potential skepticism at making such references and I do wish very much that it was not necessary to do so. Delay on tackling this subject for Nebraskans and now, for Lincolnites in particular, is a “luxury” we simply can no longer afford.

One need only check out the Mayor’s “Cleaner Greener Lincoln” initiative page to see the standard Sustainable Development references. The “ABLE” word ending is ending from a graphic designed for the “Cleaner Greener Lincoln” project and reads “Sustainable Future At Work”. Click HERE to take a preliminary spin of the project’s site. Be sure and click on the drop down and sidebar menus.

Again, much of this sounds really good. I would point out, however, that some of the projected aspects of the initiatives, such as the changes in the city’s building code are worth some concern. What kinds of costs will it add to building projects?

While I have taken a preliminary look at some of the information associated with the “Cleaner Greener Lincoln” initiative, at the moment, I have far more questions than I do answers.

Obviously, the reason my husband was so confused in watching the news report about the Mayor’s press conference associated with the methane gas landfill project and the carbon credits, is that the Cap & Trade bill failed to move beyond the House of Representatives.

Why would the City of Lincoln be participating in a carbon credits exchange if that law had failed to pass?

The Mayor noted in his press conference that he has decided to have Lincoln voluntarily lower its emissions. Who authorized him to do that?

Who authorized the expenditure of funds for the landfill methane project and what were the funding sources for it?

Further, I want to know what on earth the Mayor is referencing in terms of a carbon credit exchange. Does he know something the rest don’t about the implementation of a cap & trade system via the EPA?

Or has the mayor obligated Lincoln “voluntarily” to participate in some carbon credit exchange program? Who authorized him to do that? What does that entail? Is it like the cap and trade law proposals? Does that mean my residence will have a carbon emission cap assessed? How will this affect Lincoln’s businesses?

What else does Chris Beutler have in store for our city that we don’t know anything about?

We’re already working on digging up some of the answers to these questions. We’ll report more as we gather information.