“Bring back the line,” the Poodle says. And he’s angry.

Here’s the link: Bring Back the Light Blue Line to Santa Barbara Streets

“…

For all of City Hall’s many faults, the council deserves credit for passing meaningful measures ​— ​not just purity posturing and virtue signaling ​— ​designed to address climate change. Much of it’s wonky and defies simple sound-bite summation. 

One example is its vote-prohibiting natural-gas hookups in most new developments ​— ​much to the chagrin of energy companies. Natural gas contains greenhouse-gas emissions 86 times more destructive than carbon dioxide. When the council voted, only one member of the public spoke against it. So much for climate change not being a local issue.

Then there’s the council adoption of the Clean Energy Initiative, in which our City Hall joins with other city halls up and down the coast to form partnerships to buy less polluting energy for our residents than what SoCal Edison would otherwise be selling. In this deal, Edison will be tasked with getting this energy from its source to our homes. If there’s any surplus generated by these transactions, the proceeds can be used to, among other things, help create new locally based energy supplies. The hope is that this program will cut carbon emissions from electricity consumed by city residents by 20 percent. 

That’s not a local issue?

While the rest of us were sleeping, the same City Hall that’s reviled for doing nothing quietly created a new Department of Sustainability & Resilience. Co-running this show is Alelia Parenteau, a wonderfully named badass who, as a young City Hall intern years ago, spent six months riding on the back of trash trucks to track what happens to our recycled wastes.

Not to be crassly obvious, but even the skeptics and deniers have been forced to admit that the occasional drought, wildfire, and flood have now been insanely fueled by climate change. How many of those “we-are-heroes” gummy bracelets must future debris-flow victims have to wear? 

Not a local issue? 

If not us, then who? 

Bring back the Light Blue Line.”