SEATTLE NEWS ARCHIVES & FEATURES

Dori: Mayor Durkan uses climate change to take your money

Apr 6, 2018, 4:08 PM

Jenny Durkan...

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

(AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

Local politicians want to take billions of dollars from you in the name of climate change. They are bold-faced liars.

RELATED: Seattle’s war on cars is also a war on families

Mayor Jenny Durkan is, I assume, a smart person. Seattle City Councilmember Mike O’Brien — I’m not so sure. But I’m going to give them both the benefit of the doubt and assume that they’re reasonably intelligent. What I’m about to prove to you is that, if they are anywhere near reasonably intelligent, then they are liars.

The city of Seattle wants to charge you every time you drive downtown. Politicians eventually want to toll every road in the Puget Sound area and in the state. My sources have correctly predicted that leaders want to have variable pricing for every road in the region. That is the goal.

Their stated reason for tolling at a Seattle press conference a couple of days ago was that they need to do something about climate change. It’s all in the name of climate change that they’re doing this. Whenever they say this, they are lying. If they want to be honest, they just need to say, “We are using climate change as a scheme to take money from you.” It is a massive transfer of wealth from the working families of this area to government control.

According to seattle.gov, the total greenhouse gas emissions in Seattle for 2014 (the last recorded year) were 3.4 million metric tons. According to epa.gov, total global gas emissions for the last recorded year were 10 billion metric tons, or 10,000 million metric tons. If you break down the math, that means Seattle is responsible for 34 ten-thousandths of one percent of total global emissions.

If we cut it in half, that would be 17 ten-thousandths of one percent that we are contributing to this battle. If you know anything about data like this, it means we are completely insignificant to the planet’s global gas emissions. So, when they say that they’re doing this to fight climate change, that is a lie. It is a very sleazy way to rip off residents.

Climate change and math

There are a lot of people who can’t break down numbers and don’t understand anything about math. They hear “climate change” and think, “We’ve got to do our part.” This is going to be billions of dollars. Every soundbite you get from the politicians — Jenny Durkan, Jay Inslee, Dow Constantine — reiterates that we have to do our part to save the planet.

I can’t explain to you what a tiny amount that is — 17 ten-thousandths of one percent. They want to take billions of dollars from the people of this state, starting in Seattle. It’s meaningless to the planet. It’s not going to affect global temperatures at all.

You know how money is flying out of your family’s budget when you pay your illegally-calculated car tabs. You know how tough it’s getting to make ends meet in one of the most expensive regions in the country. Our politicians should look at every issue on the basis of cost versus benefit. The cost to you and me is billions of dollars. The benefit is going to be nothing. What we expose and reveal with the truths of these numbers is that this is using the trendiness of climate change and the ignorance of the masses to transfer billions of dollars from our families to government control.

Our politicians are liars, and the voters around here are chumps.

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Dori: Mayor Durkan uses climate change to take your money