Denver Moonbats Target Global Warming

A bit of food poisoning this morning kept me from this story (h/t Moonbattery) that outlines Denver Mayor "Teflon" John Hickenlooper's ambitious--read: draconian--"climate action plan" that carries some stiff penalties for you carbon footprint abusers:

Denver is gearing up to fight global warming, and residents may soon be asked to make personal sacrifices to help save the planet.

The new plan is aimed at making Denver a national leader in reducing gas emissions that have been linked to global warming, giving a major push to alternative energy, stepping up recycling and changing building codes to encourage energy conservation.

But the proposal also contains some ideas that may be unpopular [ya think?--ed.], such as penalizing heavy users of electricity and natural gas and basing auto insurance premiums on the number of miles traveled.

The ambitious goal is to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 4.4 million metric tons by 2020, the equivalent of eliminating two small coal-fired power plants or taking 500,000 cars off the road.

Mayor John Hickenlooper has made the "climate action plan" a centerpiece of his second term in office. More than two dozen people from business and community groups met for several months with city staff to hammer out the plan. Many of them fear Colorado will be slammed hard by global warming, with more droughts and forest fires.
. . .
The city also would give incentives for car pooling and the use of hybrids and other low-polluting vehicles, possibly by giving them priority in parking.

To cut back on use of landfills - methane gas from landfills is a major contributor to global warming - the plan would encourage recycling and charge residents for the amount of trash they throw away.

Denver may ask voters to approve higher rates for "excessive" use of electricity and natural gas. The plan also floats the idea of using insurance premiums to penalize people who drive long distances.

"You can think of them as penalties or you can think of them as market signals," said Conover. "There's some choice involved."

Moonbats continue to think that government intrusion constitutes market forces and hence "market signals". Sorry, Conover, punitive fines are not "market signals" and when the government enforces something, there is rarely, if any, choice involved. Nice try, though.

Denver's busybody bureaucrats will attempt to cajole the voting population to "voluntarily" impose these economic sanctions on themselves, thus absolving them of responsibility should they fail miserably. Neighboring cities and counties should also look forward to similar moonbat measures in the near future:

"This is not a trend or a city competition," said Benita Duran, a CH2M Hill executive who co-chaired the group that put together the plan. "It's a global matter of serious concern."

Denver may just reduce the potential global warming effect by 0.00001 of a degree Fahrenheit, thanks to these "visionary" measures.

**Update:
--9 of 12 hottest years in Denver occurred before 1955

**Update 2:

"Some see red on Denver's green plan
Proposals called radical, 'loony' after hitting Web"

The headline says it all.