The Burlingame Voice

Snowy Memories

After reading about the incredible snow levels in California, a regular Voice reader forwarded a photo of the famous 1962 Burlingame snowfall.  Here she is with her sister and an awesome snowman!  She notes that the houses shown are still there (another wonder) and challenges readers to identify the street.

Update:  This photo arrived from the Burlingame Historical Society after the initial post.  It is credited to Sister Marilyn Gouailhardou

In case you haven't been following the snow news, it's crazy out here.  I'm standing on the walkway to my Tahoe place yesterday--and I'm 5'8".  It's snowing now with another 2' expected.

New Recycling Company Comes to Town

The consumer recycling effort is complicated and fraught with problems from slim markets for certain materials (see the percentages from two years ago here) to consumer education and discipline about sorting and contamination.  I worry that a lot of what I put in the blue bin doesn't get recycled in the end--and I'm paying for it on the front-end (CRV) and the back end (to Recology).  I'm not alone and that has presented an opportunity for a new company to come to B'game.  I started seeing Ridwell boxes and lawn signs a couple of months ago--they look like the milkman drop boxes of old--white with red letters.

Ridwell found the Voice and offered up a call with the CEO, Ryan Metzger, to explain what the company is up to.  Organized as a Social Purpose Corporation, it offers a subscription service for scheduled pick-up of otherwise less-recyclable materials like light bulbs and "plastic film"--which is the myriad plastics that you can scrunch up in your hand.  In addition to the recurring items, Ridwell runs "specials" --featured categories of materials that are scheduled out six months in advance, e.g. CDs/DVDs are coming up soon.

For about $15 a month a subscriber gets the box, separate bags that go in the box for different materials, an IOS app and a dashboard to see how you are doing and what is coming up.  I haven't tried it myself so I'm hoping some Voice reader is among the ~125 customers in B'game and can weigh in.  The company notes:

We provide lots of education on what can / can't be recycled, have a staff of employees who answer questions, give people material to pre-sort rather than mixing it altogether, and then publish data on how much of it came in the way it was supposed to so that it can improve over time.  As a result, we have very high-quality bales of plastic. Our members are showing that the 9% number (Ed: from my earlier post) on how much plastic is recycled is not fixed and can actually go up!

On their end, Ridwell works directly with a number of organizations that take their better-conditioned recyclables, e.g. the composite lumber manufacturers like Trex.  Clothes and shoes ("threads" in Ridwell parlance) go to Goodwill or other similar organizations.  I'll be curious to check in with them after the first year of local operation and see how it's going.  In the meantime, welcome to B'game.

Global Warming Warning..or Not?

Watching the political gyrations around gas stoves and the news that China's population declined last year, reminded me of an article I picked up on a recent trip to Maui that is worth dissecting.  It was by the main Associated Press climate writer Seth Borenstein, but I won't pin the headline on him since I bet AP headlines are written by a different person -- or maybe ChatGPT?  The headline reads "Study:  Two-thirds of glaciers on track to disappear by 2100".  The first five paragraphs boil down to this:

The study in Thursday's journal Science examined all of the globe's 215,000 land-based glaciers - not counting those ice sheets in Greenland and Antartica - in a more comprehensive way than past studies.  The world is now on track for a 4.9 degrees Fahrenheit temperature rise  since pre-industrial times, which by the year 2100 means losing 32 percent of the world's glacier mass.

That's where things got sticky for me. 32 percent isn't two-thirds.  The lead author is a Carnegie-Mellon prof named David Rounce.  You have to go down 10 more paragraphs that are mostly about sea-level rise to read:

The Columbia Glacier in Alaska had 216 billion tons of ice in 2015, but with just a few more tenths of a degree warming, Rounce calculated it will be half that size.  If there's 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit of warming since pre-industrial times, an unlikely worst-case scenario, it will lose two-thirds of its mass, he said.

I always go back to Steven E. Koonin's book Unsettled for a bit of context.  He described the four IPCC scenarios of warming called RCPs - Representative Concentration Pathways meant to "span a plausible range of possibilities for population, economy, technology, and so on" (p. 71).  They are RCP 2.6, 4.5, 5.0 and 8.5.  The last one is the doomsday scenario, but it is falling apart as we speak as you can read here:

“The IPCC concedes what many have contended all along by admitting ‘the likelihood of high emissions scenarios such as RCP8.5 . . . is considered low.’ Indeed, emissions in 2050 in the International Energy Agency’s current and stated policies scenarios are less than half the quantities projected by RCP8.5. The IPCC also tacitly acknowledges RCP8.5 no longer qualifies as a ‘no policy’ scenario since the vast majority of countries have climate policies.

“And yet, IPCC references RCP8.5 (and an equivalent emission scenario called SSP5-8.5) 1,359 times–more often than any other scenario. Maybe that’s why the IPCC declines to assess the ‘feasibility or likelihood’ of ‘individual scenarios’—otherwise RCP8.5 would be banished from the report!

In the news business and in the headline writing business in particular, if it bleeds it leads.  We need to be careful about taking an incredibly complex topic and boiling it down to a headline that even the article it heads doesn't think is likely; even if you have to wade through 15 paragraphs to find that out.

When you read in the DJ about R&D building projects on the Burlingame bayfront getting exemptions from the no-gas code perhaps you can now relax a bit

The City Council approved an amendment to its energy reach codes, during its meeting on Wednesday, which allows exemptions for projects planned for the city’s Bayfront before 2023 and considers exceptions for future development.

Or maybe you just wonder about how you get one?

Natural Gas: Follow the science?

We must take note of the national kerfuffle about gas stoves that has been boiling over this week.  It's totally pertinent to B'game because our last city council bought into the climate hype and instituted a "reach code" such that new construction can't have any natural gas--not just stoves, but water heaters, furnaces, and barbeques.  No gas for you!  Now the Feds are making similar noises and then backtracking as the WSJ notes

A Biden appointee on the Consumer Product Safety Commission explicitly threatened to ban gas stoves based on dubious evidence of public-health harm. “This is a hidden hazard,” said commissioner Richard Trumka Jr. “Any option is on the table. Products that can’t be made safe can be banned.”  After withering public criticism, including by Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, the CPSC Chairman denied any plan to ban, and the White House said President Biden also doesn’t want to ban gas stoves. But that’s cold comfort given that the climate left does want to ban them, and progressive cities and states are doing it.

One might ask what is the science behind gas phobia?  Well, today the SF Chronicle actually let a letter to the editor slip through that is pretty clear on the science:

There has lately been a lot of concern about gas ranges and how they can harm indoor air quality, but some of this is too fast and too furious.  As an active researcher in indoor air quality, there can be no doubt that gas cooking produces nitrogen dioxide and that this is bad for respiratory health but the level of concern is far higher than the data show the situation actually warrants. 

Cooking is likely the most polluting thing done in homes. It produces lots of contaminants, regardless of the heat source. Switching to electric may not make the sum total significantly better.  The solution that works regardless of the type of cooking is using your range hood when cooking. Range hoods have been required in California for a long time. Studies have not shown that there would be any significant difference in net harm between gas and electric cooking if you actually use range hoods when cooking.

Max Sherman, retired senior scientist, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

I'll bet if you were one of the 2.4 million PG&E customers that lost power over the last two weeks you were thankful you had a gas stove and some matches even if your range hood or downdraft vent didn't work.  Open a window and enjoy a cup of tea or a bowl of soup.

NYE Deluge: Floating down the Avenew

The Pineapple Express arrived right on time to make a mess of New Year's Eve.  I only ventured onto El Camino once yesterday and it was before the stuff really hit the fan.  My mother-in-law drove on it later and a splash from an adjacent car knocked her windshield wiper right off the car!  But we know ECR is a drainage disaster.  What about the Ave?  It seems the deluge combined with a king tide that was expected, per the Chron

The tides will be at their most extreme on Friday when the high tide of 7.12 feet will arrive at 10:24 a.m. and the low tide will dip to -1.74 feet at 5:26 p.m. — a sea change of nearly 9 feet in about seven hours. Saturday’s high tide rolls in at 11:14 a.m. at 7.09 feet with a low tide of -1.77 feet at 6:15 p.m. A high tide of 6.88 feet will appear at 12:06 p.m. on Sunday.

The king tide combined with the National Weather Service measurements shows the magnitude and also that this isn't a 100-year flood--more like a 30-year flood.

Our San Francisco Downtown site hit 5.46” in the 24 hours of December 31st. This makes it the second wettest day in the 170+ years of records at that site, just 0.08” less than 1st place (11/5/1994) with 5.54”.

It also highlights a design challenge with the seawall that is being proposed for sea-level rise.  Keeping Bay waters out is one thing.  Letting rainfall out is quite another.  Friday's king tide was a shade bigger, but not until the deluge came on Saturday did we have this problem:

I hope this video plays for everyone.

Download Flood vid 123122

Update Jan 5th.  Here is the downed Euc on the Caltrain tracks that PSA noted in the comments.  Thanks to the intrepid photog who captured it for me.

Solar hypocrisy is expensive

Watching the gyrations of the intertwined energy and transportation sectors of our economy is frustrating at best.  Anyone with a modicum of critical thinking skills has to wonder what our politicians and bureaucrats are thinking?  Last week the CPUC kneecapped the rooftop solar market.  The Comicle writes

For new customers, reduce the amount utilities’ pay them for excess power by at least 75% compared with current rates. The change would not apply to residents with existing solar systems.

Because residents and businesses with solar panels generally have smaller energy bills, they contribute less to a utility company’s fixed costs, such as transmission and distribution networks, which are passed on to ratepayers. As a result, non-solar residents, including low-income residents and renters, carry more of the cost burden.

The solar rules increased bills for customers who do not have rooftop solar by $3.37 billion in 2021, growing to $4.5 billion so far this year, according to the CPUC’s Public Advocates Office.

See what they did there?  People with panels "contribute less to transmission and distribution" costs.  But what about generation costs?  They pour private capital--lots of it-- into helping the utilities avoid those costs.  Another case of lies, damned lies and statistics.  The other push is to get people to add batteries when they put in the panels, so the load is spread better throughout the day and night.  Good idea for a lot of reasons, but crazy expensive and getting more so as the metals that go into batteries get more expensive.  I'll bet the CPUC Public Advocates Office isn't spending any time on looking at where those metals come from (hint:  Russia, China, the Congo with little environmental protections and some slave labor).

Speaking of grid stability, how does the all-out push to force people to buy EVs (by 2035 in California) fit?  The president of Toyota had this to say this week

President Akio Toyoda said he is among the auto industry’s silent majority in questioning whether electric vehicles should be pursued exclusively, comments that reflect a growing uneasiness about how quickly car companies can transition.  “That silent majority is wondering whether EVs are really OK to have as a single option. But they think it’s the trend so they can’t speak out loudly.”

Toyota is still pursuing plug-in hybrids and hydrogen and they have their eye on the cost of all of this

Sticker prices for electric vehicles have also jumped this year because of the rising cost of battery materials, limiting the pool of buyers who can afford one.

In a debate between the "silent majority" that designs, builds and has to sell cars at a profit and the CPUC and Newsom, I'm more comfortable with people who look at all angles of the question--it's good that they aren't staying totally silent.  Newsom in particular has his focus elsewhere, but his ex-wife weighed in on him this week.

Kimberly Guilfoyle made a rare public comment about her ex-husband, California Governor Gavin Newsom, on Sunday.  “In California, they have vowed to get rid of gas-powered cars. A bunch of winners over there. Ask me how I know. I got news for him. He ain’t making it to the White House!”

In the meantime, rooftop solar got more expensive, EVs got more expensive, and electricity got more expensive.  But at least there is more "equity".

Climate: Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics

There are two high-profile climate guys bucking the prevailing winds on global warming.  They both acknowledge that some warming is happening--the questions are what to do about it?  Will they work? How draconian should the measures be and how much is too much to spend on them?  Even more importantly, they both "fix" numbers that preoccupy the press.  We've discussed some of Steven Koonin's book Unsettled here and here.  The other guy is Bjorn Lomborg and he is providing a big "fix" this week

As the United Nations’ annual global climate summit, COP27, nears, it’s important to look with skepticism at the academic reports many news outlets cite as evidence supporting radical climate policies. Too often, they use highly skewed data that seem to have been carefully selected to support aggressive environmental regulations. One recent and much-cited Lancet report appears deliberately deceptive.

The study offers a frightening statistic: Rapidly rising temperatures have increased annual global heat deaths among older people by 68% in less than two decades. That stark figure has been cited all over, from the BBC and Time to the Washington Post and the Times of India, the world’s largest-selling English-language daily. ...the report commits an amateur statistical fallacy by blaming the increase in heat deaths on “rapidly increasing temperatures.”

Annual heat deaths have increased significantly among people 65 and older world-wide. The average deaths per year increased 68% from the early 2000s to the late 2010s. But that is almost entirely because there are so many more older people today than there were 20 years ago, in no small part thanks to medical innovations that keep us alive longer. Measured across the same time span the Lancet maps heat deaths, the number of people 65 and older has risen by 60%, or almost as much as heat deaths. When the increase in heat mortality is adjusted for this population growth, the actual rise that can be attributed to rising temperatures is only 5%.

Then Lomborg moves the needle from statistical fallacy to damn lie

I’ve actually raised this issue to the Lancet before. Last September the journal published a study with the same fallacious argument, and I sent the editor a detailed letter explaining the problem. The Lancet never corrected it and here it is, over a year later, committing the same error.

Before you go "But 5% is still bad", Lomborg goes on to note that cold kills way more people than heat and, in fact, "Based on today’s population size, the current temperatures cause about 17,000 more heat deaths in older people, but also result in more than half a million fewer cold deaths. Reporting one finding without the other is misleading about the true effect of climate change."

I saw him speak in Palo Alto last year and after his 90-minute pitch and 50+ detailed slides, one gets an appreciation of the complexity involved in "fixing" science.  Here he is on stage

Banning Natural Gas: Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics

I sort of get it.  You're just back from the long Labor Day weekend.  The news is slow unless you want to talk about the heat and blackouts.  So what to do as a Daily Journal reporter?  Curtis Driscoll pulled out his abacus and dashed off an article about the percentages of supporters who want to ban natural gas in San Mateo.  It's an impressive show of support!

Public sentiment is in favor of more stringent reach codes in San Mateo around new construction and home renovations to eliminate gas, with most speakers at an Aug. 30 meeting supporting the city’s potential updates.

Polling at the end of the meeting following discussions found the vast majority strongly supported stricter electric reach codes around home renovations, new construction and electric vehicle infrastructure. More than 80% strongly supported requiring heat pump water heater installation for projects, including a water heater replacement in homes, requiring new pools to use electric or solar heating, and prohibiting extending the use of gas fire pits, grills and water heating in residences.

Wow!  Four out of five dentists recommend it.  Go big on Green.  Save the planet now.  I guess the message is getting through to people.  But wait!

The poll had 25 respondents of the 35 people who attended the meeting.

Now hold on.  Depending on which data source used and which iteration of some data sources, like the US Census, San Mateo has between 102,200 and 105,674 residents.  You don't have to spend 30 years in market research like I did to know that somethin' ain't right.  Were the 25 respondents self-selected by attending in the first place?  Yup.  Were they all even from San Mateo?  Dunno, but knowing how these greenie flash mobs go, I'll bet maybe half were.  Were the votes visible to all?  Did the 10 people who did not respond feel pressure to support the natural gas ban, but chose to abstain because they don't?  Good bet.  So the headline should read "Will apathy allow climate fanatics to load new costs on homeowners?"  With the meeting in question taking place virtually on Aug. 30, that is closer to the true story.

If you learned nothing from this week's events, it is that putting all of your household energy eggs in one basket is unwise.

Here is some additional information to buttress the argument about dual-sourcing your energy needs:

Birds, squirrels, balloons, Oh My.

Stinky Red Tide in B'game

The Chronicle is running a second story today as the "algal bloom" spreads throughout the Bay.  In yesterday's print edition there was a photo of a dead sturgeon at Coyote Point.  It was about two feet long.  The Chron notes

While scientists can’t yet pinpoint an exact cause of the bloom, which first began in late July, the fish kills are a sign that it has grown in intensity. It’s also become very noticeable, with the bay’s maroon-brown tint visible to motorists from the Bayshore Freeway or Bay Bridge and an estimated thousands of dead fish piling up near shore.

An intrepid Voice reader sent along a much better photo of the bloom on our bayfront and reiterated how much the whole thing stinks.  Check it out.

Follow the money....out of state

Dan Walters at Calmatters.org is back on the economic case with a piece titled "California is leaking vital high-income taxpayers".  Before we go to his big picture, Calmatters also just reported the month-to-month changes:

For the second month in a row, the Golden State’s tax revenues fell short of projections: The state in July collected about $1.28 billion less than expected, largely due to lower proceeds from the personal income tax, according to a Monday report from the state Department of Finance. California in June collected about $2.4 billion less than expected.

That $97 billion dollar surplus burning a hole in Sacramento pockets could evaporate pretty quickly.  Here's some snippets from Walters' piece

Since 2010, 7.5 million people have left California while 5.9 million people have come from other states.  That gives rise to a question: Who is leaving California and why?  The Chronicle found that 39,000 San Franciscans who had filed federal tax returns for 2018 had moved out of the city before filing 2019 returns. Collectively, they took $10.6 billion in income with them while people who moved to the city during that period reported just $3.8 billion in income.

California’s top income tax rate, 13.3% on taxable incomes over $1 million, is by far the nation’s highest and when added to the top federal rate of 37% pushes the overall bite to more than 50%. Moreover, a tax overhaul during the Donald Trump presidency basically ended the ability to deduct state income taxes on federal returns.

If anything, California’s taxes on the wealthy are likely to increase. Proposition 30, a measure on the November ballot, would boost the top marginal rate to over 15%, raising money for programs to battle climate change, and another tax hike is headed for the 2024 ballot.  Income taxes account for three-quarters of California’s general fund revenues and the top 1% of California taxpayers generate nearly half of those taxes.  That’s just 150,000 taxpayers in a state of 40 million, so even a trickle of departures has a potentially huge impact on the budget.

Half of three-quarters is 37.5%.  Just saying.  The annual change in population has been trending down for 12 years, but we still need to destroy single-family residential zoning via SB9 to build more.  We are "leaking" vital taxpayers--nice phrasing from Dan.  And we are going to push more through the "leak" to fund climate change even after the Feds have just approved trillions for climate change.  All good.  Nothing to see here.  And in another slick Federal tax move, we are going to give the IRS $80 billion, but they still need to figure out what they will do with it.  Probably should have done that first.