"LEEDING" AMERICA DOWN THE GARDEN PATH

 Below is an op-ed submitted to our local newspaper regarding our local Conference Center.  I wrote this in response to an article they published in today's paper, where city staff members and leaders are lamenting that the building they mortgaged our fire houses to build, didn't receive a higher "LEED" rating.  The Conference Center project has been in the red since it opened, since conception actually.  Now the thing on their minds is raising the "LEED" certification for this boondoggle?  Oh my....we have some seriously delusional people in government.  Anyway....read on....

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The Gastonia Conference Center could be the poster child for using taxpayer money to chase rainbows.  If common sense were more common, we would not have city leaders and staff looking for “LEED” pots of gold at the end of rainbows.  In order to satisfy some idiocy of global warming, which is also a scam played on the public, a group of self-appointed, unelected, false experts set themselves up to “LEED” an entire nation to economic ruin using mumbo-jumbo and tax dollars.  

The US Green Building Council (USGBC), a private non-profit dreamed up “LEED,” a third party rating system for buildings, and eventually became part of the World Green Building Council.   Ambition not lacking, USGBC and the World Green Building Council began to lobby the building industry, building trade organizations, architects, and governments simultaneously to adopt “LEED” certification for all new development and remodeling development.  At the same time, our government(s) began pushing the now trite and highly suspect word, “Sustainability.”   What does this mean to you?  Hundreds of millions of tax dollars going straight into other people’s pockets for chasing rainbows.

Speaking of pots of gold, USGBC states: “The USGBC advocates government incentives for green building practices. It states, “One of the most effective strategies to encourage green building is through financial or structural incentives. Rewarding developers or homeowners who adopt green building techniques spurs innovation and demand for green building technologies.” It also states, “Financial incentives, including tax credits/ abatements and revolving loan funds, are a highly successful means of encouraging developers to follow green building practices.”

“The U.S. Green Building Council is a private organization that is, “committed to supporting federal, state and local governments in their pursuit and development of green building programs and initiatives.”

Does it work? “Bank of America's Toxic Tower New York's "greenest" skyscaper is actually its biggest energy hog.” “And it wasn’t only the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Platinum certification—the first ever for a skyscraper—and the $947,583 in incentives from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.” “According to data released by New York City last fall, the Bank of America Tower produces more greenhouse gases and uses more energy per square foot than any comparably sized office building in Manhattan. It uses more than twice as much energy per square foot as the 80-year-old Empire State Building.

Is this really good for you?   Just like the government mandate taking lead from paint now results in mold all over the exterior of your house, the so-called green / sustainability building practices are resulting in bad health effects for humans in the built environment.  HVAC systems are now more expensive while tasked with replacing dead air in buildings built too tight to allow a reasonable transfer of fresh air, a situation that older buildings never had. 

According to another “sustainability” expert who is looking to cash in on another aspect of this insanity,  ” We’re building projects that are progressively more energy efficient, and we’re building tighter and tighter boxes. If we fill them up with materials that are toxic, we’re creating the perfect gas chamber.”

Well, that sounds wonderful, doesn’t it?  Can’t wait to own, live and work in that gas chamber!  That hotel you stayed in last week that says they only wash the sheets and towels every other day?  You know, the one that has such horrible CFL light bulbs filled with mercury, so dim that you can’t see what’s in your suitcase?  They get “LEED” points for doing that.  “LEED” points lead to tax credits.  They pay less in taxes, while your taxes then go up to pay for “LEED” certified government buildings, costing you a bloody fortune and solving nothing, but making some very clever scammers a whole lot of your money.

Pots of gold at the ends of rainbows are for leprechauns.  Our city leadership and staff members need to get back into the real common sense world of reality.  In a perfect world, this type of scam would be prosecuted under RICO (racketeering) statutes.  But today, selling lies to the public for personal profit seems to be the order of the day.  Too many people are getting rich doing it.
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Sources:
(http://www.usgbc.org/ShowFile.aspx?DocumentID=6247 “Financing and Encouraging Green Building in Your Community”)

http://www.architectmagazine.com/sustainability/qa-five-questions-with-skanskas-chief-sustainability-officer-beth-heider_o.aspx?utm_source=newsletter&utm_content=jump&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ANW_102414&day=2014-10-24&he=4d9abe91f1058fc7fc974c87be354fba9857bca6

http://www.leedexposed.com/questionable-science/

Henry Gifford, author of “A better way to rate green buildings,” sums up the criticism of LEED: “Going to so much trouble and expense to end up with buildings that use more energy than comparable buildings is not only a tragedy, it is also a fraud perpetuated on US  consumers trying their best to achieve true environmental friendliness.”

In testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space and Technology Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight, Dr. John H. Scofield of Oberlin College stated that “There then appears to be no scientific basis for institutions such as colleges, universities, or the Federal Government to require LEED certification as a GHG or energy reduction strategy for its buildings.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Green_Building_Council

WHO IS THE CATAWBA RIVER DISTRICT? AND WHY?

Over the past few years I have watched as environmental non-profits have multiplied like a veritable plague of locusts across the land. And I've researched the origins of this all the way back to the Federal government agencies feeding these locusts with money our Federal government does not have and must borrow or print. Billions of dollars ( estimated, but no way to tell over the last 10 years or so, how many billions have been unloaded into the non-profits..I'd be willing to bet more in the trillions) in grants have been handed out to anyone and everyone who will carry out the anti-private property rights schemes of these locusts.

I learned this past week that yet another "protection" scheme has popped up in our area, something called the Catawba River District. This "district" crosses county borders and city designations on a map drawn up by some environmentalist do-gooders who have no elected authority from anyone. Some few folks, who don't necessarily own any land there by the way, just arbitrarily drew a line around a territory that they want to control, set themselves up as a non-profit, started taking donations, began applying for grants, set up an advisory board and proceeded to call themselves a "district." They do say on their site in a few places that cooperation with them is "voluntary." But wait a minute, since this is all "voluntary," what is the goal here? What is NOT "voluntary" is the tax money they receive in the way of grant money. Other taxpayers are funding this operation by forced collection of taxes and by governments allowing this as tax shelter, thereby putting the tax burden on the rest of us. Because of the non-profit status of this group, they are now in process of lobbying local governments and requesting grant monies from state and federal governments. Excuse me? Some collective crew of control fanatics have crowned themselves kings of a piece of land they do not own. I would call this a protection racket, back to some very unhealthy practices of fiefdom from the middle ages. These fiefs are taking money from you and me to perpetrate their fiefdom. And most of the folks who are perpetrating this particular scheme are wealthy (I know some of them) and carry some lofty titles such as "planners" or directors of some other non-profits. Some of them have no credentials in the area of science or environmental issues at all. They just want in on the take.

From New Voices, an arm of the Catawba River District funded by the Knight Foundation which is an arm of a newspaper publishing business which includes the Charlotte Observer "The Catawba River District has identified several major funding opportunities, including a Sustainable Communities planning grant from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development; federal weatherization grants and creation of a job-training center at the ReVenture renewable energy facility."
Stem is the GREEN indoctrination education system set up by the Catawba River District Now I have no gripes against teaching science, biology, math or any of the skills these people are advertising. But the entire premise here is indoctrinating children in the Al Gore fiction of how humans are ruining the environment and must use "sustainable" methods in all they do.

Their cute circle logo above looks like Bill Nye the Science Guy stuff, but teaching children science and biology is not the goal.

The goal is the top image, the three interlocking ovals. In case you don't recognize that symbol, it is very similar to the symbol of the United Nations Agenda 21 - Sustainable Development doctrine. The UN one says Environment, Equity, Economy.

This is just one grant application, asking for our tax dollars from the EPA:
Catawba River District, Inc.

Charlotte, NORTH CAROLINA

Indicated Organization Type

Nonprofit w/ LEA

Indicated Grant Type

Development

Private Match Waiver Requested

No

Award Length Requested

3 Years

Federal Funding Requested

$1,523,629.00

Next up, you can apply for a gold star from the Catawba River District if you play by their rules:

Catawba River District Certification and Weatherization

A unique feature of the Catawba River District is its voluntary programs to certify and promote environmentally sustainable buildings and properties.

Catawba River District Certification is awarded to buildings and properties whose owners meet stringent standards to protect the environment and our wildlife, safeguard the Catawba River and significantly reduce energy consumption. Residential and commercial subdivisions and both new and existing homes and commercial buildings can earn River District Certification.

River District Weatherized designation can be earned by owners of existing homes and buildings who want to make their buildings more energy efficient but aren’t ready for the more intense certification process. Improvements made for this program can count later toward the full certification.

Both programs help safeguard our fragile yet precious river ecology while creating a sustainable community for generations to come.

There is more than this on their website, but again, I ask the question, "Who are these people and why do they think they are so important that they can hand out certifications for people's buildings?

From where comes their authority? They were not appointed by local city governments or county governments. Even if they were, they are certainly not elected by citizens. They sat themselves on top of a supposedly popular environmental cause and gave themselves some authority over a swath of land they don't own to pressure private owners from doing whatever they need to do with their property, to use the unholy word "develop" it, or to live on it as they please. They found some currently popular cause to latch onto and then proceeded to fund it using our tax money and to set up tax shelters for donors.

Of course the altruistic cause of "protecting the river" is their supposed motive. But, we have already clean air and water laws. We already have regulations that prevent pollution. So what is the necessity of the Catawba River District? No doubt they are patting themselves on the back every night and day, telling themselves they are saving the planet, the drinking water, the land, the riparian wildlife, and all else from those evil possible developers who might want to use the land.

They've covered all of the bases. Education, Protection, Media Publications, Certifications.... Then, when all else fails, they claim it is a historic district where American Indians traded their goods.

More from their site:
• The historic Tuckaseegee Ford and Trail - used for many centuries by both native Americans and European settlers. Modern parks preserve the historic area on both sides of the Catawba.

So it is also a Historic Place? If I were betting, I'd bet the Indians came through the neighborhood I live in, too, at some point in time. And, believe me, if you are going to start down that road, the one where American Indians were here first, we might as well all leave the country on the first available transport. Heck, why don't we all just commit suicide and make these folks really happy.

The non-profits keep propagating spawn. For instance one non-profit agency then creates another non-profit under it to carry out some new corollary function. The Catawba Lands Conservancy, therefore, created the Carolina Thread Trail. The Catawba River District created the River Keepers and STEM. And so it goes, until some of the larger non-profits have many baby non-profits, all happily enjoying the Federal money feeding frenzy. Not to mention the wealthy persons and corporations who are using these non-profits for tax shelters.

My point, in case you missed it, is that I am seeing land carved up and claimed, regardless of legal jurisdictions, by environmentalist groups who have set themselves up as judge and jurors of how people are going to live on their own private property. This is going on all across the nation thanks to Federal policies of funding groups who are operating outside of the law. Believe me, this is outside of the law. This is extra-constitutional. You can't vote them out. They are using our tax money to do it, yet they have no real, legal, authority. How did this happen? How do we stop them?

And where does this end?